jy>Sf0fMS$^ 


lUN  17  191P 


<^06'!CAL  Sl^V 


.^vS 


BV  4900  .M26  1919  c.l 
McLeod,  Malcolm  James,  b. 

1S67. 
"Songs  in  the  night," 


/^' 


N  17  IS 


"Songs in  the  Night" 


By 

MALCOLM  JAMES  McLEOD 

Minister  of  Collegiate  Church  of  St.  Nicholas, 
New  York  City 


New  York  Chicago 

Fleming     H.     Revell     Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


i  ALSy 


Copyright,  1919,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh :      75    frinces    Street 


Dedicated  to  all  my 
Comrades  in  the  School  of  Sorrow 


Contents 

I.  "  We  Smile  at  Pain  While  Thou 

Art  Near  "    ....        9 

II.  "  My  Very  Heart  and  Flesh  Cry 

Out" 27 

III.  "  Bread  of  the  World  in  Mercy 

Broken"         ....      45 

IV.  "  We    Turn    Unfilled    to  Thee 

Again  " 60 

V.  "  Drop  Thy  Still  Dews  of  Quiet- 

ness"       75 

VI.  ««  E'en  Though  It  Be  a  Cross  That 

Raiseth  Me  "  ...      90 

VII.  "  Towering  O'er  the  Wrecks  of 

Time" 106 

VIII.  "  We  Will  Be  True  to  Thee  Till 

Death" 120 

IX.  "I  Yield  My  Flickering  Torch 

TO  Thee "      .        .        .        -135 

X.  "  Awake  My  Soul,  Stretch  Every 

Nerve  " 149 

XI.  "  For  Those  in  Peril  on  the  Sea  "     162 

XII.  '*  Far,  Far  Away  Like  Bells  at 

Evening  Pealing  ".         .        .176 


7 


"WE  SMILE  AT  PAIN  WHILE  THOU 
ART  NEAR" 

**Are  the  consolations  of,  God  too  small  for 
thee?"— Sob  1^'.  11. 

WANT  to  say  a  word  or  two 
about  the  consolations  of  God. 
Sometimes  we  are  tempted  to 
think  that  God's  consolations 
are  very  inadequate.  In  the 
passage  before  us  Eliphaz  is 
represented  as  asking  the  afflicted  patriarch, 
"Are  the  consolations  of  God  too  small  for 
thee?"  Not  are  they  small,  as  the  old  version 
puts  it,  but  are  they  too  small?  Are  they  un- 
satisfying? Do  they  meet  your  need  ?  Far  back 
in  patriarchal  days  we  read  the  story  of  Rachel. 
"Rachel  weeping  for  her  children  refused  to  be 
comforted."  And  no  doubt  the  reason  why  she 
refused  to  be  comforted  was  because  the  con- 
solations offered  seemed  too  small.  They  did 
not  measure  up  to  her  sorrow.  They  did  not 
really  grapple  with  her  grief.  Whoever  goes 
into  houses  of  mourning,  to-day,  will  find  many 
distressed  and  desperate  lives  like  that.  They 
will  find  those  who  refuse  to  be  comforted. 
9 


JO  ''Songs  in  tbe  -rHQbt" 

Nothing  that  you  can  say,  seems  to  appeal  to 
them.  I  do  not  mean  to  infer  that  they  try  to 
be  unhappy;  it  is  simply  that  everything  you 
suggest  appears  inept  and  petty.  Nothing  seems 
comprehensive  enough  and  big  enough  to  meet 
their  case. 

"  Just  to  give  up,  and  trust 
All  to  a  fate  unknown, 
Plodding  along  life's  road  in  the  dust, 
Bounded  by  walls  of  stone; 
Never  to  have  a  heart  at  peace. 
Never  to  see  when  care  will  cease; 
Just  to  be  still  when  sorrows  fall; — 
This  is  the  bitterest  lesson  of  all." 

And  it  is  foolish  to  say  to  such  people  that  they 
ought  to  be  comforted.  It  is  really  not  kind  to 
tell  them  that  they  are  committing  a  sin  in  re- 
fusing consolation,  because  consolation  is  too 
gentle  an  angel  for  any  such  cruel  coercion  as 
that.  To  blame  a  grief-stricken  mother  for  con- 
tinuing to  be  depressed,  vrould  be  as  inconsiderate 
as  to  blame  a  sick  man  for  continuing  to  be  sick. 
The  doctor  does  not  say  to  his  patient,  **Now  here 
are  my  medicines,  take  them  and  they  will  make 
you  strong;  if  they  do  not  make  you  strong  it  is 
your  own  fault."  That  is  not  how  the  wise 
physician  talks.  The  wise  physician  studies  the 
case  from  every  angle.  He  seeks  for  adequate 
causes.  If  one  diagnosis  is  incorrect,  he  tries 
another.  If  one  antidote  fails  he  experiments 
with  a  new  one.    He  does  not  come  into  the  sick 


"Me  Smile  at  ipain"  u 

room  to  play  the  piano  or  to  read  an  essay  on 
Thackeray.  He  does  not  come  to  tell  the  poor 
fellow  in  agony  how  critical  his  case  is,  or,  what 
is  almost  as  bad,  that  there  is  really  nothing  the 
matter  with  him.  He  comes  to  relieve  the  pain, 
to  repair  the  ravages  of  disease,  to  mend  the 
broken  instrument.  He  comes  to  cheer,  to  radi- 
ate health  and  hope,  to  stir  up  the  elemental 
forces  of  recovery. 

Many  there  are  who  find  greater  comfort  in 
human  friendship  than  in  the  great,  divine 
Friend.  When  the  blow  comes  and  the  spirit  is 
bruised,  they  call  in  their  dearest  and  closest  con- 
fidants to  see  if  they  can  help  in  making  the  pain 
endurable.  I  would  not  for  a  moment  belittle 
that.  It  is  a  beautiful  and  gracious  thing.  The 
love  and  sympathy  of  earthly  friends  is  strong, 
and  sweet,  and  heartening.  Poor  indeed  and 
pitiable  is  the  child  of  sorrow  who  has  no  kind 
heart  to  turn  to  in  the  hour  of  loss  and  trial,  but 
poorer  far  the  soul  that  has  no  divine  com- 
panion to  whom  they  can  go  and  with  whom  they 
can  converse  on  intimate  and  familiar  terms. 

Now,  of  course,  there  are  many  earnest  people 
who  do  not  need  this  message.  I  wish  I  could  say 
that  they  never  will  need  it,  but  I  cannot  say  that. 
I  cannot  say  it  because  it  would  not  be  true.  Many 
of  you  are  young  and  strong  and  happy.  You 
do  not  need  consolation,  not  as  yet.  Your  time 
is  coming,  but  the  word  has  no  meaning  for  you 


J2  **Sonos  in  tbe  migbt*' 

just  now.  It  belongs  to  a  foreign  language,  a 
language  you  have  never  studied,  a  language  you 
have  never  thus  far  had  any  cause  for  studying. 
As  Edwin  Booth  once  put  it,  "Life  is  a  great  big 
spelling  book  and  on  every  page  we  turn,  the 
words  grow  bigger  and  more  difficult. ' '  We  be- 
gin with  the  easy,  then  on  to  the  less  easy  and 
then  on  to  the  hard  and  the  harder.  What  you 
need  now  is  work,  duty,  progress,  courage,  tasks, 
service, — something  to  call  out  your  powers  of 
strength  and  sacrifice  and  endurance.  *'Ke- 
member  now  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy 
youth,  while  the  evil  days  come  not  nor  the  years 
draw  nigh  when  thou  shalt  say,  I  have  no  pleas- 
ure in  them.  ...  In  the  day  when  the 
keepers  of  the  house  shall  tremble,  and  the 
strong  men  shall  bow  themselves,  and  the 
grinders  cease  because  they  are  few,  and  those 
that  look  out  of  the  windows  be  darkened. ' ' 

It  is  to  those  who  have  been  in  the  depths — 
to  those  who  have  been  journeying  through  the 
valley  that  I  speak.  Ian  McLaren  said  towards 
the  close  of  his  life  that  if  he  were  beginning  his 
ministry  over  again  he  would  make  it  more  a 
jninistry  of  comfort.  A  wise  man  once  wrote 
a  book  upon  the  consolations  of  philosophy,  but 
the  trouble  with  his  message  was  that  only  the 
philosophical  were  able  to  understand  it,  and 
anyway  it  was  mostly  conjectural.  What  we 
want  is  a  voice  that  every  man  can  hear,  high 


«Me  Smile  at  pain"  J3 

and  low,  learned  and  unlearned;  what  we  want 
is  certainty;  what  we  want  is  demonstration. 
What  we  want  is  something  that  can  be  tested 
and  tried  in  the  thin  and  thick  of  things.  It  is 
all  very  well  to  tell  us  to  be  philosophical  about 
our  trouble,  **to  grin  and  bear  it,"  as  the  saying 
is,  but  there  is  precious  little  comfort  in  that 
program.  A  book  might  be  written,  too,  on  the 
consolations  of  Science,  but  it  certainly  would 
not  be  a  very  bulky  volume.  For  science  is 
grandly  and  haughtily  indifferent  to  the  cry  of 
human  misery.  The  stars  are  cold,  the  cyclone 
is  merciless,  the  earthquake  has  no  pity.  In  the 
presence  of  death,  science  is  dumb.  Scientists 
talk  of  a  Cosmical  Phantom,  or  a  stream  of  tend- 
ency, or  a  universal  It.  I  hope  they  under- 
stand what  they  mean,  but  I  must  say  I  very 
much  doubt  it.  And  a  book  could  easily  be 
written  on  the  consolations  of  Fatalism.  It  had 
to  be,  so  why  worry  over  it?  Just  be  resigned. 
In  the  physical  world  things  are  where  they  were 
meant  to  be,  and  what  is  going  to  happen  is  go- 
ing to  happen.  And  in  human  experience  is 
not  the  same  thing  true?  When  the  bullet  is 
fired  with  our  number  on  it  then  there's  no  use 
trying  to  dodge  it. 

"  The  moving  finger  writes,  and  having  writ 
Moves  on;  nor  all  thy  piety  nor  wit 
Shall  lure  it  back  to  cancel  half  a  line 
Nor  all  thy  tears  wash  out  a  word  of  it." 


H  **  Songs  in  tbe  miobt** 

But  all  this  is  cold  stuff  to  the  man  who  wants 
to  know  and  do  the  will  of  God,  and  it  is  to 
those  who  desire  to  know  and  do  the  will  of  God 
that  I  speak  just  now.  There  are  several  ways 
in  which  the  consolations  of  God  come  to  us. 

Think,  in  the  first  place,  how  God  oftentimes 
consoles  us  by  giving  us  Compensations.  Samuel 
Rutherford  once  said:  "Whenever  I  find  myself 
in  the  cellar  of  affliction  I  always  look  about  me 
for  the  wine."  And  no  matter  how  sad  and 
grievous  our  lot,  there  is  always  some  gracious 
cheering  indemnity.  It  is  easy  for  us  to  linger 
upon  our  losses,  but,  then,  we  have  gains  and  we 
ought  to  think  more  about  what  we  have  gained 
than  what  we  have  lost.  We  ought  to  meditate 
more  on  what  has  been  left  than  on  what  has  been 
taken.  God  sometimes  takes  one  thing  away  to 
make  room  for  another.  There  is  a  sermon  by 
a  great  preacher  on  "the  joys  that  are  purchased 
by  sorrow."  Some  of  the  sweetest  joys  in  life 
are  the  joys  that  spring  out  of  sorrow.  Does 
not  Browning  say  in  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra  that  our 
joys  are  three  parts  pain  ?  An  old  saint  once  re- 
marked, "When  I  have  most  pain  in  my  body,  I 
have  most  comfort  in  my  soul. '  *  Indeed  Brother 
Lawrence  says,  * '  God  often  sends  diseases  of  the 
body  to  cure  those  of  the  soul."  Alfred  Russel 
Wallace  argues  in  one  of  his  books  that  the  fertile 
portions  of  the  earth  depend  upon  the  deserts. 
He  says  that  if  there  were  no  Sahara,  there 


"Me  Smile  at  pain-  J5 

would  not  be  a  vineyard  round  it  for  a  thousand 
miles.  It  is  the  dust  particles  flying  in  the  air 
that  make  possible  the  clouds.  Whether  this  be 
scientifically  true  or  not,  it  is  an  undoubted  fact 
that,  sometimes,  it  is  the  desert  tracts  of  life  that 
prepare  us  for  the  richest  harvests. 

One  of  John  Wesley's  earliest  memories  was 
the  fire  that  destroyed  his  father's  parsonage. 
He  tells  us  how,  after  his  own  narrow  escape, 
his  father  finding  all  the  family  safe  called  them 
in  for  family  worship.  And  the  old  man  knelt 
down  and  thanked  his  Heavenly  Father  for  His 
preserving  mercies.  He  had  lost  his  home  but 
his  dear  ones  were  spared,  so  he  felt  rich.  And 
we  all  have  something  to  be  thankful  for.  If  it 
isn't  one  thing  it's  another.  There  is  always 
some  levelling  arrangement.  Things  are  evened 
up  more  than  we  think  they  are.  Never  mind 
your  list  of  negatives.  Count  up  your  column 
of  positives.  You  say  you  were  sick  three  weeks 
last  year,  but  why  not  ponder  over  the  forty-nine 
in  which  you  were  well?  So  count  your  bless- 
ings and  be  thankful.  The  back  is  always  fitted 
for  the  burden.  Oftentimes  a  darkening  earth 
means  a  brightening  heaven. 

In  giving  medicine,  our  Father  never  opens 
the  wrong  bottle.  Many  a  dying  saint  has  looked 
up  in  helpless  weakness  and  has  been  strength- 
ened with  might  by  His  Spirit  in  the  inner  man. 
God  does  not  always  answer  our  prayers,  but 


i6  '•Songs  in  tbe  miobt" 

He  does  always  pour  strength  into  our  souls. 
Spurgeon  used  to  say  that  love  letters  from 
heaven  are  often  mailed  in  black-edged  envelopes. 
When  Madame  Guyon  was  imprisoned  in  the 
Castle  of  Vincennes  she  wrote  these  words:  "It 
sometimes  seems  to  me  as  if  I  were  a  little  bird 
which  the  Lord  had  placed  in  a  cage  and  that 
I  had  nothing  to  do  now  but  to  sing.  The  joy 
of  my  heart  is  full.  The  stones  in  my  prison 
look  like  rubies." 

Another  way  in  which  God  consoles  us  is  by 
giving  us  a  truer  Sense  of  Vahies.  He  teaches 
us  what  is  worth  while  and  what  is  not.  He 
enables  us  to  realize  how  relatively  insignificant 
and  petty  some  of  the  things  are  that  we  con- 
sider urgent  and  supreme.  What  a  wonderful 
lesson  that  man  has  learned  who  has  been  taught 
to  recognize  a  big  thing  when  he  sees  it,  and  a 
little  thing  when  he  sees  it!  How  few  of  us  are 
experts  in  this  matter  of  appraisement!  How 
few  of  us  are  living  our  lives  with  a  true  accurate 
sense  of  proportion !  How  few  are  putting  "first 
things  first"!  Some  one  has  said  that  he  who 
would  speak  to  the  times,  must  speak  from 
eternity.  That  is  to  say  the  only  interpretation 
of  life  that  satisfies  the  heart  of  humanity  is  the 
one  we  get  when  we  climb  the  mountain  with 
God.  Everybody  admits  we  are  not  children  of 
time.  And  this  being  acknowledged,  does  it  not 
seem  the  sheerest  folly  devoting  so  much  of  our 


**'mc  Smile  at  pain**  M 

strength  and  energy  into  the  amassing  of  treasure 
that  cannot  possibly  be  converted  into  the  cur- 
rency of  the  place  to  which  we  are  travelling? 
The  greatest  moment  in  a  man's  life  is  when  he 
gets  the  right  view-point,  when  he  sees  things  as 
they  really  are.  Indeed  that  is  what  conversion 
is;  the  man  is  bom  again.  There  is  a  new 
orientation  of  life. 

Thomas  Chalmers  preached  for  years  before 
he  made  the  great  blessed  discovery.  Then  came 
a  day  when  he  was  stricken  down  with  a  seri- 
ous illness.  For  months  he  never  left  his  room. 
It  was  more  than  a  year  before  he  fully  re- 
covered, but  from  these  months  of  profound  and 
solitary  musing  there  came  a  spiritual  revolu- 
tion. His  whole  past  life  looked  like  a  feverish 
dream,  the  fruitless  chasing  of  shadows.  He 
found  that  his  past  could  not  stand  the  scrutiny 
of  the  sick  room.  A  new  ambition  fired  his 
breast.  It  was  a  spiritual  epoch  in  his  career. 
The  whole  man — ^body,  soul  and  spirit — was 
transformed,  and  he  went  back  into  his  pulpit 
and  shook  Scotland  with  a  mighty  passion  for 
God.  It  was  said  of  a  certain  famous  painter 
that  he  was  noted  for  the  great  pains  he  took  in 
his  work  and  when  asked  for  the  reason  he  an- 
swered, "Because  I  paint  for  Eternity."  That 
was  the  key-note  of  all  Chalmers*  future  ministry. 
He  felt  that  he  was  henceforth  preaching  for 
eternity.    He  learned,  too,  that  we  cannot  do 


J8  "Songs  in  tbe  migbf 

good  to  others  save  at  a  cost  to  ourselves,  that 
we  cannot  be  real  sympathizers  until  we  are 
sufferers. 

How  prone  we  are  to  forget  that  our  life  is 
related  to  two  worlds.  The  great  problem  with 
us  all  is  to  learn  how  to  live  an  eternal  life  in 
the  midst  of  time,  and  how  to  surrender  the  lower 
values  for  the  higher.  We  so  easily  lose  our 
sense  of  proportion.  We  make  the  subordinate 
supreme.  Putting  the  accent  in  the  wrong  place, 
is  the  cause  of  nearly  all  our  failures.  We  turn 
the  pages  of  history  and  the  names  of  Csesar,  and 
Napoleon,  and  Alexander,  are  written  large. 
This  type  fills  the  foreground  of  the  picture. 
The  historian  dismisses  Shakespeare  with  a 
page,  but  to  Bloody  Mary  he  gives  a  chapter. 
Gutenberg  gets  a  scanty  line,  but  Guy  Fawkes 
has  a  paragraph.  The  chief  cause  of  the  secta- 
rianism which  is  crippling  the  Church  to-day  is 
a  false  putting  of  emphasis.  Men  seize  upon 
some  little  arc  of  truth  and  dwell  on  it  until  they 
lose  sight  of  the  circle.  Perhaps  the  greatest 
lesson  any  of  us  can  learn,  is  to  learn  where  to 
place  the  emphasis.  The  true  art  of  life  is  to 
know  the  things  that  matter.  Everywhere  we 
meet  men  in  deadly  earnest  but  how  few  are  in 
earnest  about  the  things  that  really  count.  In- 
deed this  is  the  inexplicable  irony  of  life  that  so 
much  of  our  time  and  strength  are  spent  on  the 
things  that  do  not  really  matter. 


**mc  Smile  at  jpain"  J9 

Some  years  ago,  a  story  appeared  in  one  of  our 
magazines.  It  was  concerning  an  eminent  sur- 
geon. I  have  forgotten  many  of  the  details,  but 
I  remember  it  made  an  impression  on  me  at  the 
time.  One  of  the  nurses  in  the  hospital  in 
describing  him  used  these  words:  **He  has  few 
friends  but  a  host  of  admirers.  As  an  operator 
he  has  no  superior  on  Manhattan  Island.  To 
watch  his  hands  while  working  is  a  perfect  de- 
light. They  never  stop,  never  fumble ;  the  man 
is  a  genius  and  yet  there  is  something  uncanny 
about  him. "  "  What  do  you  mean,  Nurse  ?  "  she 
was  asked.  * '  I  mean, ' '  she  answered,  *  *  that  pro- 
fessionalism seems  to  have  atrophied  his  power 
of  sympathy.  For  instance:  an  engineer  was 
brought  in  the  other  day  with  his  arm  crushed. 
He  examined  it  and  told  the  man,  bluntly,  that 
he  would  have  to  have  it  amputated.  Of  course 
the  poor  fellow  protested ;  at  which  the  surgeon 
lost  his  temper  and  went  away  coldly,  saying  as 
he  slammed  the  door  that  he  would  leave  him  to 
come  to  his  senses  and  decide  whether  he  pre- 
ferred amputation  or  death." 

That  evening  at  dinner,  the  surgeon  was  nar- 
rating the  incident  to  his  sister.  The  sister  had 
a  woman's  heart.  "Oh  well,  John,  the  poor  fel- 
low has  a  family ;  his  arm  is  all  he  has.  Did  you 
explain  the  gravity  ?    Put  yourself  in  his  place.  *  * 

The  words  evidently  struck  home,  for  that 
evening  he  went  back  to  the  hospital  and  the 


20  "Songs  in  tbe  tMQbt** 

unfortunate  engineer  was  wheeled  into  the 
operating  room.  But  blood  poisoning  had  al- 
ready set  in,  and  in  severing  the  limb,  the 
surgeon  cmt  his  own  finger,  and  it  became  so 
badly  infected  that  in  a  few  weeks  his  skilled 
hand  had  lost  its  cunning. 

The  great  man  was  now  in  a  kindred  situation 
himself.  Calling  his  sister  he  said:  **Floy,  it's 
the  greatest  game  in  the  world.  Nothing  com- 
pares with  it ;  it  beats  war  all  hollow.  To  master 
your  work  and  love  it.  Just  to  look  about  you 
and  see  your  assistants  every  one  in  his  place, 
every  one  with  his  part  to  play — like  regulars  in 
gun  drill.  Not  a  word,  not  a  hitch,  only  the 
clip,  clip  of  the  forceps  or  the  low  call  'sponge.' 
To  feel  the  ligatures  tighten,  to  see  the  tied 
artery  throb  and  to  know  it  will  never  slip.  And 
then  to  think  that  I  can  never  operate  again. 
Floy,  it's  hard."  The  nurse  did  not  under- 
stand when  she  returned  later,  but  in  a  few  days 
she  noticed  a  change  in  the  great  man.  He 
seemed  to  have  a  new  point  of  view.  He  in- 
quired every  morning  how  the  engineer  was. 
He  even  shared  his  flowers  with  him.  He  was  less 
of  a  surgeon,  perhaps,  but  he  was  more  of  a  man. 

The  greatest  lesson,  after  all,  to  learn  is  to  look 
at  one 's  life  from  the  view-point  of  immortality. 
To  live  now  as  we  will  wish  we  had  lived  when 
twilight  falls — that  is  success.  Jesus  found  men 
consuming  all  theii*  energies  in  seeking  the  ex- 


**Me  Smile  at  patn"  2J 

ternals,  and  so  He  endeavoured  to  recentralize 
their  affections  on  a  more  lasting  attainment. 
To  Him  character  alone  was  supreme;  the  true 
wealth  was  spiritual.  "Seek  first  the  Kingdom 
of  God  and  his  righteousness;  and  all  these 
things  will  be  added  unto  you." 

Then  think  of  all  the  Promises.  The  Bible  is 
largely  a  book  of  promises.  The  promises  of 
God  are  not  simply  soft,  sweet,  soothing  words. 
They  are  wholesome.  They  are  healing.  They 
cure  the  malady.  They  are  wonderful  sources 
of  consolation.  They  not  only  eharm  us  with 
their  beauty;  they  strengthen  us  with  their 
power.  They  work.  They  are  true,  eternally 
true.  "The  promises  of  God  are  yea  and  amen 
in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord." 

Think  of  the  promise  of  pardon.  You  can 
wade  through  all  your  books  of  philosophy  and 
you  will  never  once  find  the  word  pardon ;  it  is 
not  there.  The  very  heart  of  Christianity  is  the 
cross  of  Calvar5\  And  the  great  truth  it  pro- 
claims is  that  human  pain  and  divine  love  can 
go  arm  in  arm  together.  "Though  your  sins  be 
as  scarlet  they  shall  be  as  white  as  snow. ' '  The 
very  fullness  of  these  and  such  words  is  what 
oftentimes  causes  men  to  hesitate.  They  try  to 
clog  them  with  exacting  conditions,  but  there  are 
no  conditions  save  those  we  formulate  and  erect 
ourselves.  "Their  sins  and  their  iniquities  will 
I  remember  no  more."    God  is  willing  to  for- 


22  **  Songs  in  tbe  TFligbt" 

get.  He  is  willing  to  forget  the  things  that  are 
behind,  but  it  is  a  righteous  forgetting.  It  is  no 
mere  wilful  lapse  of  memory.  It  is  a  step  to- 
wards a  holier  state  and  a  higher  ambition  on  our 
part.  If  we  grieve  over,  and  forsake,  and  are 
willing  to  make  amends,  when  possible,  for  our 
sin,  God  is  ready  to  forgive  and  forget. 

I  remember  going  through  the  Roman  Cata- 
combs, and  I  recall  how  strangely  we  all  felt  when 
we  were  given  candles — in  the  glaring  light  of 
a  cloudless  Italian  sky.  But  when  we  penetrated 
into  the  depths  of  these  underground  crypts,  we 
soon  realized  what  our  little  candles  meant.  And 
so  is  it  with  the  promises  of  Scripture ;  they  are 
the  candles  of  the  Lord  by  which  we  thread  our 
way  when  twilight  falls,  "and  after  that  the 
dark." 

Or  consider  the  consolation  of  Hope.  Our 
God  is  a  God  of  Hope,  and  by  hope  we  mean  a 
conviction  in  the  heart  that  the  future  will  be 
good.  When  the  ship  is  aground  hope  points  to 
the  open  sea.  In  the  dead  of  winter,  hope  whis- 
pers of  spring.  On  the  bleakest  day  in  January, 
when  the  snow-drifts  are  piled  level  with  the 
fences,  hope  sees  the  golden  harvest.  Every- 
body knows  what  a  comfort  there  is  in  hope  if  it 
is  only  a  living  hope.  It  makes  for  strength,  and 
patience,  and  endurance.  The  sailor  adrift  on 
the  ocean  soon  sinks  into  helpless  despair  if  there 
be  no  vessel  in  sight,  but  let  a  sail  appear  on  the 


••XRIle  Smile  at  ipatn"  23 

horizon  and  how  eager  and  alert  he  instantly  be- 
comes. He  tries  in  every  way  possible  to  at- 
tract attention.  When  an  oarsman  loses  hope  he 
soon  gives  up  rowing,  especially  if  the  current 
is  against  him.  Nothing  steadies  in  a  crisis 
like  hope.  The  surgeon  says  that  hope  is  half 
the  battle.  The  pain  is  not  nearly  so  sharp 
if  there  is  a  chance  of  getting  well.  They  tell 
me  there  is  not  a  despondent  line  in  the  whole 
New  Testament.  Christianity  is  a  manifesto  of 
hope.    *  *  We  are  saved  by  hope. ' ' 

If  a  loved  one  has  gone  out  of  your  life,  be- 
yond the  reach  of  your  cry,  think  of  your  hopes. 
Your  loss  after  all  is  a  small  matter  relatively. 
It  is  easily  met.  Get  the  right  point  of  view. 
Think  of  his  gain.  The  promise  is  that  your 
mourning  shall  be  ended.  No  man  will  carry 
his  mourning  with  him  into  heaven.  "Weeping 
may  endure  for  a  night  but  joy  cometh  in  the 
morning."  Most  people  dread  death,  but  Paul 
regarded  it  as  a  blessing.  "What  do  you  know 
about  death?"  said  a  farmer  once  to  Thomas 
Erskine;  "you  have  never  died."  But  it  is  the 
consolation  of  God  that  faith  knows.  "Faith  is 
the  assurance  of  things  hoped  for."  "For  the 
Lord  himself  shall  descend  from  heaven  with  a 
shout,  with  the  voice  of  the  archangel,  and  with 
the  trump  of  God  and  the  dead  in  Christ  shall 
rise  first.  Then  we  which  are  alive  and  remain 
shall  be  caught  up  together  with  them  in  the 


24  *•  Songs  in  tbe  IRtgbt " 

clouds  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air ;  and  so  shall 
we  ever  be  with  the  Lord.  Wherefore  comfort 
one  another  with  these  words.'* 

Or,  best  of  all,  consider  the  consolation  of 
His  own  blessed  presence.  God  comes  to  the 
broken-hearted  with  His  healing  presence.  "I 
will  pray  the  Father  and  he  shall  give  you  an- 
other Comforter."  A  man  in  sorrow  is  nearer 
to  God  than  a  man  in  joy.  Sorrow  is  the  great 
doorkeeper  to  the  Temple  of  Prayer.  The  happy 
child  runs  farther  afield,  the  hurt  child  turns 
home.  He  wants  his  mother.  There  are  griefs 
worse  by  far  than  death  and  much  more  difficult 
to  comfort.  But  the  presence  of  the  Lord  en- 
ables us  to  endure  any  pain  which  He  sees  fit 
to  send. 

"Can  you  see  the  lake  in  the  Park  from  your 
apartment?"  a  lady  said  the  other  day,  and 
I  answered  her,  "Not  in  summer,  but  I  can 
in  winter.  In  summer  the  thick  foliage  hides 
the  water,  but  in  winter  when  the  trees  are  bare 
it  sparkles  and  glitters  like  a  jewel.  I  sit  at  my 
window  by  the  hour  and  watch  the  children 
skating."  And  so  is  it  with  the  eye  of  faith. 
Oftentimes  the  river  clear  as  crystal  is  hidden 
from  view  by  the  rich  shrubbery  of  our  lives. 
We  do  not  discern  the  shining  shore  and  our 
distant  home  beyond,  till  our  life  is  stripped  and 
laid  naked  and  bereft. 

The  Bible  says,  "Cast  your  burden  on  the 


*'TRae  Smile  at  ipain"  25 

Lord.*'  It  does  not  say  cast  it  anywhere.  It 
never  says,  "Cast  your  burden  into  the  sea  or 
hurl  your  burden  over  the  cliff."  Nowhere  in 
the  Bible  are  we  advised  to  toss  our  burdens 
away  recklessly.  I  think  it  a  very  cowardly 
thing  this  trying  to  get  rid  of  burdens.  Our 
burdens,  like  the  wings  of  the  bird,  were  meant 
to  make  us  mount.  We  can  transform  our  bur- 
dens into  blessings.  God  intends  them  for  our 
good.  I  believe  that  the  root  weakness  of  the 
Church,  to-day,  is  that  we  have  so  much  to  enjoy 
and  so  little  to  endure.  **Cast  your  burden  on 
the  Lord. ' '  Remember  He  is  always  near.  Re- 
member He  is  the  great  burden-bearer,  the  great 
burden-sharer. 

"I  don't  believe  I  can  ever  go  into  that  room 
again,"  a  mother  said,  speaking  of  a  chamber  in 
her  home  where  there  had  been  a  tragedy.  But 
as  she  thus  spoke,  a  voice  said,  "But  you  could 
go  if  I  were  to  go  with  you."  And  feeling  an 
unseen  presence  by  her  side  she  opened  the  door 
and  entered,  when,  lo,  instead  of  its  being  a 
place  of  dread,  she  found  it  a  gallery  of  glory. 
Do  not  run  away  from  your  troubles,  dear  friend. 
Take  the  Lord  by  the  hand  and  go  right  out  and 
face  them. 

"Humbly  I  asked  of  God  to  give  me  joy. 
To  crown  my  life  with  blossoms  of  delight; 
I  prayed  for  happiness  without  alloy, 
Desiring  that  my  pathway  should  be  bright. 


26  "Songs  in  tbc  miabt" 


"  I  asked  of  God  that  He  should  give  success 
To  the  high  task  I  sought  for  Him  to  do; 
I  asked  that  every  hindrance  might  grow  less, 

And  that  my  hours  of  weakness  might  be  few; 
I  asked  that  far  and  lofty  heights  be  scaled — 
And  now  I  meekly  thank  Him  that  I  failed. 

"  For,  with  the  pain  and  sorrow,  came  to  me 
A  dower  of  tenderness  in  act  and  thought; 
And  with  the  failure  came  a  sympathy, 

An  insight  which  success  had  never  brought. 
Father,  I  had  been  foolish  and  unblest, 
If  Thou  hadst  granted  me  my  blind  request." 


II 


••MY  VERY  HEART  AND  FLESH 
CRY  OUT" 

"Out  of  the  'depths  have  I  cried  unto  thee, 
O  God.*'— Psalm  130:1. 

HIS  psalm  is  a  beautiful  prayer. 
It  soars  from  the  depths  to 
the  heights.  It  begins  in  the 
darkness  of  night  and  seK- 
abasement,  but  it  mounts  to 
the  rosy  flush  of  the  morning. 
The  author  is  unknown.  No  one  knows  his  name, 
nor  his  station,  nor  his  fortune  or  rather  mis- 
fortune. He  is  simply  a  comrade  in  trouble. 
His  is  the  experience  of  a  soul  down  and  out. 
**0  my  God,  my  soul  is  cast  down  within  me." 
**Lord  hear  my  voice,  let  thine  ears  be  attentive 
to  the  voice  of  my  supplications."  Here  is  a 
man  faUen  into  a  pit  and  sending  up  a  feeble 
cry  for  help.  **0  Lord,  make  haste  to  help 
me. ' '  Down  in  the  deep  black  hole  he  lies  "sick 
and  helpless  and  ready  to  die"  and  with  that 
smothering  feeling  that  comes  from  poor  ventila- 
tion. It  is  the  sob  of  a  desperate  case.  It  is  the 
cry  of  despair  ready  almost  for  any  rash  act. 
Then  all  at  once  he  thinks  of  God.  He  re- 
27 


28  ''Songs  in  tbe  migbt" 

calls  the  fact  that  many  a  time  before  has  God's 
redeeming  grace  met  him  in  the  hour  of  his  per- 
plexity. *' Man's  extremity  is  God's  oppor- 
tunity." Again  and  again  has  the  vale  of  weep- 
ing become  a  place  of  springs,  the  Valley  of 
Achor  a  door  of  Hope.  So  he  turns  his  face  to 
the  heights. 

The  great  city  of  London  we  are  told  is  built 
over  a  bed  of  chalk,  and  if  a  pipe  be  drilled  any- 
where within  its  far-reaching  limits  there  will 
shoot  up  a  fountain  of  cool  clear  water.  And 
this  is  the  great  truth  in  religion.  * '  I  believe  in 
God"  may  seem  a  very  simple  creed,  but  it  is 
not  simple;  it  is  the  profoundest  expression  of 
the  life  of  faith.  That  man  has  gone  a  long, 
long  way  in  his  search  for  truth  who  has  come 
really  to  believe  that  underneath  him  are  the 
everlasting  arms,  and  that  within  him  is  the 
Eternal  Spirit.  Sink  a  shaft  into  the  recesses 
of  the  human  heart  and  you  will  find  this  foun- 
tain of  all  good;  you  will  find  God.  "As  the 
hart  panteth  after  the  water  brooks,  so  panteth 
my  soul  after  thee,  O  God.  My  heart  and  my 
flesh  cry  out  for  the  living  God."  **Thou  hast 
put  eternity  in  the  heart;"  that  is  the  deepest 
note  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  very  moment 
you  touch  that  spring  why  *' waters  break  out 
in  the  wilderness  and  streams  in  the  desert. ' ' 

Have  you  ever  noted  how  old  people  tend  to 
migrate  back  to  the  scenes  of  their  childhood? 


"/ID)?  IDers  Heart  ant>  iflesb  Crs  ©ut"  29 

Tiplady  in  one  of  his  books  tells  the  story  of  the 
eel.  He  says  that  the  eel  is  bom  in  the  depths 
of  the  ocean  hundreds  of  miles  from  shore,  and 
that  by  a  compelling  instinct  it  begins  to  push 
itself  almost  from  the  moment  of  its  birth  to- 
wards the  land.  After  a  long  journey  it  at  last 
reaches  our  rivers  and  streams  where  it  crawls 
through  the  marsh  and  the  mud.  Here  it  lives 
for  years  gorging  its  voracious  appetite.  Then 
the  overmastering  impulse  that  brought  it  in 
sends  it  out  again,  and  it  returns  to  the  far-away 
ocean  bed  where  it  was  born  and  where  at  last 
it  dies.  Something  like  this  is  the  story  of  man. 
Wordsworth  says,  ''Trailing  clouds  of  glory  do 
we  come  from  God  who  is  our  home,"  and  an 
overpowering  longing  is  in  us  all  to  return  at 
the  end  of  the  pilgrimage  to  the  cradle  of  our 
departure. 

Have  you  ever  been  in  the  depths,  my  friend? 
Have  you  ever  gotten  down  so  low  that  your  feet 
touched  bottom  and  it  seemed  as  if  your  poor 
weak  voice  could  not  possibly  reach  the  top  ?  I 
doubt  if  there  was  ever  a  saint  on  earth  who  was 
not  at  some  time  or  other  in  the  depths.  Take 
the  matter  of  Danger.  Have  you  ever  been  in 
any  impending  peril?  In  the  107th  Psalm  we 
have  a  forceful  picture  of  a  storm  at  sea.  The 
waves  mount  up  to  heaven,  then  they  sink  down 
to  the  depths !  The  mariners  reel  to  and  fro  and 
stagger  like  a  drunken  man.    They  are  at  their 


30  **QonQ3  in  tbe  migbt" 

wit's  end.  Then  what  do  they  do?  Then  they 
do  what  everybody  always  does.  Then  they  cry 
to  Jehovah  in  their  trouble.  The  fact  is  we  all 
look  up  when  the  crisis  comes.  **Did  you  run 
across  any  atheists  in  your  regiment?"  I  said 
to  Ralph  Connor  last  winter.  Quick  as  a  report 
from  a  pistol,  he  answered,  "Not  one."  One 
soldier  writes,  "The  nearer  we  get  to  the  front 
line  trenches  the  better  Christians  we  are.  All 
the  infidels  are  in  the  rear,"  Perhaps  one  of 
the  greatest  passages  in  literature  is  where  Mrs. 
Quickly  in  describing  the  death  of  Sir  John 
Falstaff  tells  how  the  sensual  old  knight  fumbles 
the  sheets  and  keeps  calling  out  ''God,  God, 
God.'*  In  the  last  great  extremity  all  his  vaunt- 
ing, all  his  jesting  vanishes,  and  with  serious 
countenance  he  looks  into  the  face  of  his  Maker 
mumbling  the  23rd  Psalm.  "When  the  Devil 
was  sick,  the  Devil  a  saint  would  be." 

Or  take  Anxiety.  Have  you  ever  been  lost  in 
the  maze  of  some  dark  and  staggering  suspense? 
You  are  bewildered.  You  do  not  know  which 
way  to  go,  which  corner  to  turn;  you  have  lost 
your  bearings.  Everything  is  inexplicable  and 
puzzling.  Light  is  what  you  want  and  all  is 
darkness.  You  wait  for  the  word  that  never 
comes.  You  look  for  the  letter  that  the  postman 
never  brings.  Perhaps  you  are  standing  by  the 
bedside  of  one  you  love  and  life  is  tilting  in 
the  balance.    And  the  cruel  anxiety  drags  on  for 


**/»»  Deri?  Ibeart  ant)  jflesb  Crg  ©ut"  3J 

days,  for  weeks.  Oh,  it  is  terrible !  No  anxiety- 
is  so  nerve-racking  as  the  anxiety  that  is  shrouded 
in  mystery.  When  you  can  understand  your 
trouble  you  are  saved  the  torture  of  the  imagina- 
tion, but  when  you  cannot  understand  it,  it  acts 
like  an  infection  in  the  wound.  The  saddest 
experience  to-day  is  where  a  family  learns  that 
their  lad  is  among  the  missing.  What  happened  ? 
Nobody  knows.  Fancy  plays  terrible  havoc  with 
the  heart  and  suggests  all  sorts  of  cruel  pos- 
sibilities. 

Or  take  our  need  of  Help  and  Guidance.  Do 
we  not  often  cry  to  God  from  the  depths  of  our 
need?  There  is  a  verse  in  Genesis  and  this  is 
how  it  reads,  "Then  began  men  to  call  on  the 
name  of  the  Lord. ' '  The  race  was  emerging  out 
of  darkness  into  the  dawnings  of  conscience  and 
the  first  thing  it  realizes  is  a  sense  of  need.  Are 
there  not  times  when  some  great  responsibility  is 
laid  upon  us  and  we  feel  utterly  unequal  to  the 
task?  Was  it  a  strange  thing  that  the  pressing 
affairs  of  state  should  drive  such  men  as  Lin- 
coln and  Gladstone  and  Oliver  Cromwell  to  their 
knees?  Has  not  many  a  famous  surgeon  asked 
for  divine  assistance  as  he  stood  perplexed  by 
the  operating  table  wondering  what  was  the  best 
thing  to  do  ?  When  judgment  wavers  and  cour- 
age fails,  is  it  not  natural  to  seek  the  counsel  of 
the  Most  High?  One  could  cite  the  names  of  a 
dozen  of  the  world's  greatest  physicians  with 


32  "Sonos  in  tbe  IRlgbt" 

whom  dependence  on  a  Higher  Power  was  a  prac- 
tical force.  What  is  art  but  a  search  for  beauty  ? 
What  is  democracy  but  a  search  for  justice? 
What  is  music  but  a  search  for  harmony?  What 
is  society  but  a  search  for  brotherhood?  What 
is  science  but  a  search  for  truth?  What  is  the 
home  but  a  search  for  love?  What  is  anything 
but  a  search  for  God  ?  Do  you  not  see  it  is  God 
the  world  is  seeking?  A  flippant  critic  once 
said,  "There  is  no  God  west  of  the  Mississippi," 
but  now  we  know  that  God  fills  every  corner  of 
space  and  every  concern  and  function  of  life. 
Everything  is  a  search  for  God.  There  is  noth- 
ing true  but  God.  There  is  no  beauty  but  the 
beauty  that  is  found  in  God.  There  is  no  jus- 
tice but  the  justice  that  is  found  in  God.  There 
is  no  love  but  the  love  that  is  found  in  God.  As 
Mrs.  Browning  so  beautifully  expresses  it : 

"  I  am  near  Thee  and  I  love  Thee, 
Were  I  loveless,  were  I  gone. 
Love  is  round,  beneath,  above  Thee, 
God,  the  omnipresent  one." 

One  of  our  great  Naturalists  in  describing  the 
ascent  of  man  calls  him  a  "climbing  animal," 
but  the  phrase  answers  with  equal  truth  the  ques- 
tion of  his  moral  and  spiritual  history.  All  the 
striving  of  humanity  from  age  to  age  has  been 
called  by  one  of  the  Fathers  "a  sigh  for  God," 
a  blind  groping  after  Him  who  is  our  life  and 


**Cfbv  IDers  meart  anO  jflesb  drg  ©ut"  33 

our  hope.  There  is  a  book  by  Benson  called 
'  •  The  House  of  Quiet, ' '  and  in  it  there  is  a  para- 
graph where  the  life  of  Charles  Darwin  is  thus 
portrayed : 

"What  a  wonderful  book  this  is — from 
end  to  end  nothing  but  a  cry  for  the  Nieene 
Creed.  The  man  walks  along  doing  his  duty 
so  splendidly  and  nobly,  with  such  single- 
heartedness  and  simplicity  and  just  misses 
the  way  all  the  time ;  the  gospel  he  wanted 
is  just  the  other  side  of  the  wall." 

How  true  this  is  of  many  of  our  greatest  names. 
They  unveiled  deep  secrets.  They  were  devoted 
to  truth,  but  they  failed  to  find  the  greatest 
truth.  I  love  John  Burroughs ;  I  think  he  is  the 
best  of  all  our  nature-poets.  I  have  read  nearly 
all  his  books  and  they  are  exquisitely  charming. 
But  there  is  one  sad  lack  in  them.  He  leads  me 
through  the  garden  and  I  smell  the  honeysuckle, 
and  the  flowers  he  points  out  are  so  graceful  and 
delicate,  but  as  some  one  says,  there  is  never  a 
hint  about  the  Lord  of  the  garden.  It  is  a  case 
of  "the  garden  without  the  Gardener.'* 

In  many  of  the  confessions  of  these  men  there 
is  a  wistful  yearning.  In  their  franker  moments 
no  doubt  some  of  them  would  say  that  they  felt 
no  real  need  of  divine  help  and  comfort,  but 
then  it  is  possible  to  have  needs  though  one  is 
not  conscious  of  them.    The  little  baby  needs  its 


34  **%onQs  in  tbe  migbt" 

mother  though  it  be  so  little  that  it  feels  no  need 
of  a  mother.  One  might  as  weU  try  to  find  a 
resting  place  for  the  joint  of  the  arm  aside  from 
the  socket  of  the  shoulder  bone  as  to  find  a  rest- 
ing place  for  the  heart  outside  of  God.  Man  is 
half  a  hinge  and  God  is  the  other  half,  and  as 
you  cannot  have  the  whole  hinge  until  you  put 
both  parts  together,  so  you  cannot  have  the  whole 
man  until  you  put  God  and  man  together. 
"Fear  God  and  keep  his  commandments,  for 
this  is  the  whole  man. ' ' 

Or  take  our  Sorrow.  Sorrow  is  the  appointed 
lot  of  all.  There  are  depths  we  all  must  fathom. 
There  are  deep  dark  subways  into  which  we  all 
must  pass.  When  the  sun  shines  and  the  heart 
is  glad  we  forget  to  look  up.  God  is  not  very 
much  in  our  thoughts;  but  in  the  dark  and 
cloudy  day  we  seek  His  face,  if  not  in  faith,  in 
fear.  Out  of  the  depths  of  the  soul  there  arises 
the  voice  of  prayer.  Two  men  were  arguing 
about  the  stars  and  why  they  were  never  seen 
by  day.  One  remarked  that  if  he  would  go 
doAvn  into  a  weU  he  would  be  able  to  see  them, 
but  the  other  laughed  at  the  idea.  *'A11  right," 
suggested  the  first,  "suppose  we  test  it."  Ac- 
cordingly a  windlass  was  arranged  and  several 
strong  anns  were  drafted  to  lower  doubting 
Thomas  into  the  well.  When  half-way  down 
they  called  to  him:  '*Do  you  see  anything?** 
"Not  a  thing,"  came  back  the  answer.    "Down 


**/»»  IDerg  Heart  an&  jflesb  Cv?  ©ut**  35 

further,  boys, ' '  they  said.  Again  the  voice  above 
called  out :  "  Do  you  see  them  now  ? ' '  Again  the 
reply  came,  "I  can  see  nothing."  ** Still  fur- 
ther down,"  urged  the  men.  And  down  to  the 
depths  the  fellow  was  lowered.  When  he 
touched  bottom  he  fixed  his  gaze  upon  the  open- 
ing above  and  shouted  back :  *  *  Yes,  I  can  see  the 
stars."  Go  down  deep  enough  into  a  well  at 
midday  and  you  will  see  the  stars.  And  it  is 
when  we  find  ourselves  in  the  valley  of  weeping 
that  we  see  most  clearly  the  face  of  God. 

I  think  this  is  a  very  wonderful  truth.  How 
the  spiritual  world  grows  clearer  as  the  physical 
world  becomes  dim!  Is  it  not  a  very  curious 
thing  that  the  tendril  of  a  vine  does  not  turn  to 
the  light  but  to  the  shadow  ?  And  why  ?  Simply 
because  the  shadow  tells  it,  in  some  mysterious 
way,  that  there  is  a  solid  object  near,  round 
which  it  can  twine.  If  there  were  no  shadow 
there  would  be  no  object.  And  just  so  sorrow 
teaches  the  soul  that  there  is  some  one  near  at 
hand  to  whom  we  can  turn,  round  whom  we  can 
cling,  on  whom  we  can  lean.  I  remember  being 
told  as  a  boy  when  climbing  some  ladder  or 
scaling  some  height,  *'Now  don't  you  look  down ; 
if  you  do  you  will  get  dizzy ;  keep  looking  up  and 
the  giddiness  will  pass  away."  And  just  so 
the  way  to  surmount  every  sorrow  is  to  keep  the 
face  Godward.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  says, 
"Did  you  ever  see  that  soft  spoken  velvet-handed 


36  '♦Sonas  in  tbe  -Ricbt" 

steam  engine  at  the  mint?  The  smooth  piston 
slides  back  and  forth  as  a  lady  might  slip  a  deli- 
cate finger  in  and  out  of  a  ring.  The  engine 
lays  one  of  its  fingers  calmly  but  firmly  upon  a 
bit  of  metal;  it  is  a  coin  now  and  will  remember 
that  touch  and  tell  a  new  race  about  it  when  the 
date  upon  it  is  crusted  over  with  the  rust  of 
twenty  centuries."  And  even  so  it  is  that  a 
great  sorrow  puts  a  new  stamp  on  the  soul  in 
a  day — a  stamp  as  sharp  and  definite  as  if  it  had 
taken  years  to  engrave  it. 

There  is,  for  instance,  the  stamp  of  sympathy. 
Many  a  man  would  never  have  tapped  the 
springs  of  compassion  in  his  own  heart  if  it  were 
not  for  the  sharp  drill  of  suffering.  Darwin 
tells  us  about  a  tree  in  Chili  that  yields  a  syrup 
called  palm  honey.  The  peculiarity  about  the 
tree  is  that  it  does  not  yield  the  syrup  until  it 
is  cut  down.  ''This  honey,"  he  says,  *'is  really 
the  sap  of  the  tree.  A  good  tree  will  yield  ninety 
gallons.  The  tree  is  felled,  the  crown  of  leaves 
lopped  off,  and  then  for  months  the  veins  pour 
forth  their  stores,  and  every  fresh  slice  shaved 
off  exposes  a  new  surface  and  yields  a  fresh 
supply."  And  is  not  this  very  thing  often- 
times witnessed  in  human  experience?  Have 
we  not  all  met  men  cold  and  unflinching  and 
unfeeling  until  they  were  struck  down  by  some 
vital  blow?  Then  they  became  almost  tenderly 
womanly  in  their  compassion.    It  often  takes 


**/©S  IDers  Deart  ant)  J^lesb  Crs  ©ut"  37 

the  lance  to  pierce  into  the  foundations  of  heal- 
ing sympathy. 

"Where  grows  the  golden  grain! 
Where  faith?    Where  sympathy? 
In  a  furrow  cut  by  pain." 

But  it  is  the  depths  of  Sin  of  which  the  Psalm- 
ist is  particularly  thinking.  It  was  his  sin  that 
caused  him  such  profound  and  painful  distress. 
His  conscience  is  stirred  and  the  deeps  are  the 
deeps  of  penitence.  Sin  was  the  deep  pit  into 
which  he  was  plunged.  This  is  clear  from  the 
verses  followng,  "If  thou,  Lord,  shouldest  mark 
iniquities  who  could  stand  ?  But  there  is  forgive- 
ness with  thee  that  thou  mayest  be  feared.  Let 
Israel  hope  in  the  Lord,  for  with  the  Lord  there 
is  mercy  and  with  him  is  plenteous  redemp- 
tion and  he  shall  redeem  Israel  from  all  his 
iniquities. ' ' 

A.e  you  in  the  depths  of  sin,  my  friend? 
Look  up.  It  is  not  what  man  is  that  tests  him 
but  what  he  wants  to  be.  We  do  not  belong  to 
the  place  where  we  are — else  why  do  we  hate  it? 
We  belong  to  the  heights,  else  why  do  we  seek 
them?  Why  am  I  not  at  peace  in  my  sin?  In 
the  solitude  of  my  shame  I  cry  out  to  my  Father. 
And  if  fathers  hear  their  children  will  not  God 
hear  too?  Blessed  be  His  name  it  is  possible  to 
touch  bottom  and  then  with  a  Hallelujah  shout 
begin  to  rise. 


38  ♦'Songs  in  tbe  IRiabt" 

Oscar  Wilde  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
writers  of  comedy  that  the  Victorian  era  pro- 
duced. He  made  a  tour  of  the  United  States  and 
lectured  more  than  one  hundred  times  on  the 
philosophy  of  the  aesthetic.  But  morally  the 
man  was  a  degenerate.  He  could  write  English 
of  silken  delicacy  but  he  could  also  write  the 
coarsest  stuff.  He  sowed  great  fields  of  literary 
wild  oats.  He  was  sentenced  at  last  to  two  years' 
imprisonment  for  the  gravest  moral  offenses,  and 
during  his  confinement  he  wrote  a  little  book 
called  "Out  of  the  Depths."  Let  me  give  you 
the  preface: 

"The  Gods  had  given  me  everything,  but 
I  allowed  myself  to  be  lured  into  sensualism. 
I  amused  myself  with  being  a  fianeur,  a 
dandy,  a  man  of  fashion.  Then  tired  of  the 
heights  I  deliberately  went  to  the  depths. 
Desire  at  last  became  a  malady  and  a  mad- 
ness. There  is  only  one  thing  left  for  me 
now,  absolute  humility.  I  have  lain  in 
prison  for  nearly  two  years.  Out  of  my 
nature  has  come  despair,  scorn,  bitterness, 
rage,  anguish,  sorrow. ' ' 

The  man  cried  out  to  God  in  penitence.  Whether 
his  penitence  was  sincere  or  not  is  not  clear. 
Judging  from  his  behaviour  in  prison,  according 
to  the  testimony  of  the  warden,  it  was.  Let  us 
hope  it  was. 


*/»^  Detp  Ibeart  anD  jflesb  Crp  ©ut"  39 

I  recall  a  story  that  Dr.  Jowett  tells : 

"A  dear  friend  came  to  me  once,"  says 
Dr.  Jowett,  "filled  with  misery  and  unrest. 
After  we  talked  together  for  a  while,  he  re- 
turned home  and  that  night  prayed,  'Lord, 
wilt  Thou  reveal  to  me  what  there  is  amiss  ? ' 
In  a  vision  during  the  night,  he  said,  '  I  saw 
a  range  of  mountains  of  great  height  and 
length,  snow-clad,  shining  in  the  light  of 
God.  As  I  looked  up,  I  said.  Lord,  that  is 
where  I  should  like  to  dwell,  in  the  light  and 
purity  of  Thy  blessed  presence.  Then  I 
heard  a  voice  say,  * '  He  that  ascended  is  He 
that  also  descended."  Then  I  said,  ''Lord, 
give  me  power  to  descend."  As  the  vision 
was  continued  I  saw  that  I  was  in  a  deep 
valley,  surrounded  by  all  manner  of  unclean 
beasts,  showing  their  teeth  at  me.  I  saw 
they  were  incarnations  of  my  past  sins.  I 
was  overwhelmed  with  shame  and  mortifica- 
tion. Suddenly  I  heard  a  footfall.  I  turned 
and  saw  that  it  was  Jesus. 

**  *I  was  so  ashamed  as  He  came  nearer  and 
nearer  that  I  took  the  cloak  I  was  wearing 
and  threw  it  over  my  head.  When  He  stood 
before  me  I  could  not  look  up,  my  guilt 
seemed  so  great.  At  last  I  threw  the  cloak 
off,  and  behold  the  unclean  things  were  all 
on  Him.*  When  the  troubled  dreamer 
awoke,  his  soul  was  full  of  joyful  praises 
and  shoutings.  He  was  crying  'Hallelujah, 
what  a  Saviour!  He  bore  my  sins  in  His 
own  body  on  the  tree.'  " 

And  now  one  or  two  lessons  suggest  then^- 


40  '*Son0S  in  tbe  migbt" 

selves  in  the  study  of  these  words,  for  there  are 
things  to  be  learned  in  the  depths  that  can  be 
learned  nowhere  else.  One  is  that  it  is  a  natural 
thing  to  turn  to  the  Lord  when  we  sink  into  the 
slough.  God  is  the  God  of  the  valley  as  well  as 
of  the  hilltop.  To  whom  else  indeed  can  we 
turn  ?  To  whom  shall  we  go  ?  When  we  are  in 
trouble  we  cry  out  to  God.  That  would  seem  to 
imply  some  connecting  link  between  us.  What 
we  do  by  instinct  must  be  the  expression  of  some 
profound  reality.  Between  the  soul  and  God 
there  must  surely  be  a  great  deal  in  common. 
If  there  were  not  a  bond  of  affinity  between  us 
would  we  so  intuitively  cry  out  for  Him  in  the 
hours  of  our  deepest  concern? 

I  can  imagine  the  needle  pointing  to  the  North 
thinking  it  is  the  North  that  pulls  it.  But  not 
so!  It  is  the  magnetic  current  which  encircles 
the  whole  world  that  draws  and  binds  the  two 
together.  It  used  to  be  believed  that  man  had  no 
real  affinity  for  God.  Total  depravity  was  made 
so  completely  and  exclusively  and  cruelly  total  as 
to  leave  no  room  for  the  divine  at  all.  But  this  is 
gone  by.  We  know  that  we  have  suppressed 
longings  after  the  divine.  We  pine  after  God 
as  an  orphan  does  after  his  lost  parents.  We 
do  not  possess  a  single  faculty  that  is  not  in  some 
way  related  to  Him.  Even  the  thief  has  a  sense 
of  justice.  What  is  that  but  the  eternal  in  him? 
There  may  be  a  tender  spot  in  the  heart  of  an 


"Ob^g  IDers  Heart  an&  fflesb  Cr»  ©ut"  4i 

assassin.  Nothing  is  more  certain  as  we  study 
man  than  that  he  is  a  religious  creature. 

Jesus  taught  us  that  God  was  our  Father  and 
Fatherhood  implies  likeness.  A  son  must  be  of 
the  same  nature  as  his  father.  If  a  son  be  not 
of  the  same  nature  as  his  father  he  is  no  son  at 
all.  Creation  does  not  imply  fatherhood.  God 
has  made  a  great  many  things  that  are  not  His 
children.  "Behold  the  fowls  of  the  air,"  said 
Jesus,  *'they  neither  sow  nor  reap  nor  gather 
into  barns  and  yet" — mark  the  next  word, 
please — "and  yet  your  Heavenly  Father  feedeth 
them."  God  is  never  called  the  father  of  birds. 
Man  is  the  only  creature  that  can  go  to  God  and 
say  my  Father,  and  he  can  say  that  because  he 
was  created  in  His  image.  That  image  has 
been  defaced  but  it  can  never  be  effaced.  A 
son  may  lose  the  actual  privileges  of  sonship 
but  he  can  never  lose  his  extraction.  The 
father  can  never  cease  to  be  a  father;  the  son 
can  never  cease  to  be  a  son.  A  lad  may  go 
down  into  the  slums  of  vice  and  prostitution. 
That  will  not  sever  the  tie.  He  is  his  father's 
boy  still.  So  with  us  all.  We  can  neither  destroy 
our  divine  lineage  nor  our  divine  likeness.  We 
are  a  part  of  God;  we  are  a  finite  part  of  God's 
infinite  whole. 

Another  lesson  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the 
reason  for  much  of  our  religious  indifference  is 
because  life  with  many  of  us  is  so  superficial.    A 


42  **SonQs  in  tbe  TRtobt" 

superficial  life  is  a  life  that  floats  on  the  surface 
of  things.  A  superficial  knowledge  of  anything 
is  a  knowledge  that  does  not  go  to  the  roots.  It 
does  not  concern  itself  with  the  whys  and  the 
wherefores.  It  is  a  mere  smattering  acquaint- 
ance with  the  practical.  A  superficial  char- 
acter is  a  vain  frivolous  character  that  lives 
for  show  and  seeming,  and  such  lives  do  not 
usually  trouble  themselves  much  about  reality. 
Men  do  not  cry  out  for  God  until  the  depths  are 
stirred.  How  few  of  us  reaUy  know  what  is 
deep  down  below,  but  it  is  to  what  is  deep  down 
below  that  God  always  appeals.  So  long  as  we 
are  satisfied  with  the  surface  view  of  things  God 
will  not  interest  us.  The  empty,  frivolous,  ^ashy 
life  does  not  feel  its  need  of  God.  It  is  only 
when  the  waves  and  billows  roll  over  us  that  we 
seek  the  face  of  our  Father.  It  is  only  the  sur- 
face of  our  nature  that  nourishes  the  flowers  of 
unbelief.  When  the  deeps  are  ploughed  the  seed 
of  faith  begins  to  sprout  and  germinate. 

Still  another  lesson  would  seem  to  be  that  it 
is  not  enough  to  look  up,  we  must  go  up.  The 
Psalmist  not  only  cried;  he  waited  and  hoped 
and  trusted.  And  waiting  does  not  simply  mean 
being  passive.  It  means  that  when  a  man  calls 
he  waits  for  the  answer,  waits  sometimes  a  long 
time,  and  is  ready  to  do  what  the  answer  bids 
him.  **I  waited  patiently  for  the  Lord,  and  he 
inclined  unto  me,  aud  heard  my  cry.   He  brought 


**ab^  lt)er»  Ibeart  anC)  iflesb  Crs  Qwt**  « 


me  up  also  out  of  an  horrible  pit,  out  of  the  miry 
clay,  and  set  my  feet  on  a  rock,  and  established 
my  goings.  And  he  hath  put  a  new  song  into  my 
mouth,  even  praise  unto  our  God.  Then  said  I, 
Lo,  I  come ;  in  the  volume  of  the  book  it  is  written 
of  me,  I  delight  to  do  thy  will,  0  my  God." 

So  the  great  truth  for  us  to  learn  is  to  learn 
to  do  God's  will.  His  grace  does  not  come  to  us 
as  a  dead  weight.  It  is  not  a  mighty  lever  to 
lift  us  from  without ;  it  enters  into  us  and  raises 
us  from  within.  It  comes  like  a  heavenly  breath 
to  stir  our  own  efforts  and  make  us  co-workers 
with  Him  in  His  gracious  plans.  We  must  not 
only  live  with  our  eyes  turned  upwards  and  our 
voices  calling  to  the  heights.  We  must  do  more. 
We  must  stretch  out  our  feeble  hands  of  faith 
and  catch  the  help  for  which  we  so  earnestly 
pray.  Francis  Thompson  was  perhaps  the  great- 
est mystical  poet  of  modern  times.  Poor  Thomp- 
son, what  a  genius  he  was,  and  what  a  life  he 
lived !  The  poor  fellow  literally  died  of  starva- 
tion at  the  age  of  forty-seven.  One  of  his  great- 
est lyrics  was  found  among  his  papers  after  his 
death.  Hear  him  sing.  What  is  the  song  but  a 
sob  for  God?    It  is  a  cry  in  the  night. 


O  world  invisible,  we  view  thee, 
O  world  intangible,  we  touch  thee, 

O  world  unknowable,  we  know  thee. 
Inapprehensible,  we  clutch  thee! 


44  ** Songs  in  tbe  tMQbt** 

"  Does  the  fish  soar  to  find  the  ocean. 

Does  the  eagle  phinge  to  find  the  air — 
That  we  ask  of  the  stars  in  motion 
If  they  have  rumour  of  thee  there? 

"  Not  where  the  wheeling  systems  darken. 
And  our  benumbed  conceiving  soars! 
The  drift  of  pinions,  would  we  hearken 
Beats  at  cur  own  clay-shuttered  doors. 

"  The  angels  keep  their  ancient  places 

Turn  but  a  stone,  and  start  a  wing; 
'Tis  ye,  'tis  your  estranged  faces, 

That  miss  the  many-splendoured  thing. 

"  But  (when  so  sad  thou  canst  not  sadder) 
Cry: — upon  thy  so  sore  loss 
Shall  shine  the  traffic  of  Jacob's  ladder 
Pitched  betwixt  heaven  and  Charing  Cross. 

"  Yea,  in  the  night,  my  soul,  my  daughter, 
Cry, — clinging  Heaven  by  the  hems; 
And  lo,  Christ  walking  on  the  water 
Not  of  Gennesaret  but  Thames." 


Ill 


"BREAD  OF  THE  WORLD  IN  MERCY 
BROKEN" 

*'l  am  the  bread  of  life." — John  6: 35. 

HESE  are  the  words  of  our 
Lord.  He  is  not  speaking  about 
the  wonderful  miracle  which 
He  has  just  performed,  nor 
about  His  doctrines,  nor  about 
His  mission,  but  about  Him- 
self. And  He  calls  Himself  the  bread  of  life. 
Verily  it  is  an  astonishing  announcement,  one 
of  those  staggering  claims  that  leave  us  awe- 
struck, dumb-struck  in  His  presence.  Mark 
you,  there  is  no  quibbling,  no  equivocating,  no 
beating  round  the  bush,  just  a  clean,  clear, 
colourless  challenge  made  \nthout  any  flourish, 
without  any  call,  without  any  warning.  Like 
a  shot  from  a  cannon  in  the  peaceful  air,  it 
startles  us.  **I  am  the  bread  of  life."  The 
words  indeed  are  amazing.  If  they  do  not  make 
us  sit  up  and  take  notice,  I  rather  infer  that 
Cardinal  Newman  was  right  when  he  said,  **You 
do  not  mediate  and  therefore  you  are  not  im- 
pressed." 
The  bread  of  life.  Every  wor'd  is  monosyllabic, 
45 


46  **Sonfls  in  tbe  IRiflbt" 

Anglo-Saxon.  There  are  no  long  Latin  deriva- 
tives, no  bombastic  high-faluting  rhetoric,  no 
adjectives  full  of  melody  and  rich  in  colour,  no 
twisted,  tangled,  knotty  phrases  to  untie,  then 
words  to  parse  and  analyze;  not  any,  not  one. 
"I  am  the  bread  of  life."  No  syllables  could 
be  simpler.  A  little  child  can  understand  them. 
Not  life's  luxury,  life's  necessity;  not  pastry, 
bread ;  not  dainties,  bread.  Jesus  nowhere  calls 
Himself  the  dessert  of  life,  the  salad  or  the 
seasoning  rendering  things  tasty.  He  nowhere 
calls  Himself  the  wine  of  life  or  the  liquor  of 
life.  He  is  not  a  stimulant ;  He  is  a  staple.  He 
is  a  fundamental — bread,  meat,  flesh,  food.  We 
may  get  the  flavourings  of  the  table  otherwhere, 
but  the  essence  of  the  festival  is  Himself.  Bread 
is  not  an  ornamental  thing;  it  is  a  substantial 
thing;  it  is  the  food  of  the  body.  And  Jesus 
Christ  is  bread.  "He  is  the  bread  of  which  if  a 
man  eat  he  shall  never  hunger,  the  water  of 
which  if  a  man  drink  he  shall  never  thirst." 

Will  you  permit  me  to  repeat  that,  please? 
One  of  the  startling  things  about  this  man 
Jesus  is  His  simplicity.  Jesus  rarely  uses 
polysyllables.  The  words  He  wields  are  little 
words — light,  life,  love,  truth,  joy,  rest,  peace, 
work,  hope,  God,  Father.  These  are  the  verbal 
weapons  He  handles  and  stamps  with  the  imprint 
of  eternity.  Without  such  words  indeed  where 
would  our  language  be?    Can  you  make  a  sen- 


**JBreat)  ot  tbe  Worlb"  47 

tence  out  of  polysyllables?  Try  it.  How  sim- 
ple nature  is;  the  tree  dies,  the  sun.  shines,  the 
rain  falls,  the  bird  sings,  the  grass  grows,  the 
fire  burns,  the  water  freezes,  the  wind  blows, 
the  dog  barks,  the  baby  cries,  the  boy  laughs,  the 
man  dies. 

The  great  writers  of  the  world  are  simple. 
Deep  water  is  clear;  only  puddles  are  muddy. 
Usually  our  lack  of  clearness  is  due  to  shallow- 
ness or  sediment.  The  great  preachers,  like  the 
great  poets,  have  always  spoken  to  the  common 
heart.  Sometimes  I  pick  up  a  magazine  poem 
of  the  present  day ;  I  read  it  over  and  over,  and 
I  say  to  myself,  "I  wonder  what  this  thing 
means."  The  words  are  musical,  the  figures  are 
flowery;  yes,  but  what  does  the  passage  meant 
You  never  have  any  trouble  in  telling  what 
Ruskin  means,  or  Tennyson,  or  Wordsworth. 
Given  the  correct  text,  and  there  is  hardly  ever 
any  doubt  what  Shakespeare  means.  And  Jesus, 
too,  is  never  cloudy.  Mark  says,  "The  common 
people  heard  him  gladly,"  He  is  literature's 
supreme  artist ;  He  rises  like  a  great  white  shaft 
high  up  in  the  field  of  letters. 

Marvellous  man,  this  man  of  Nazareth!  He 
staggers  me  by  His  assumptions;  they  are  so 
daring.  And  He  never  so  staggers  me  as  when 
He  begins  by  saying,  "I  am,"  When  Jesus  be- 
gins by  saying  "I  am,"  we  know  there  is  some- 
thing coming.    **I  am  the  light  of  the  world." 


48  "Songs  in  tbe  IRiobt" 

*'I  am  the  good  shepherd."  "I  am  the  true 
vine."  "I  am  the  way."  "I  am  the  truth." 
**I  am  the  resurrection."  "I  am  the  judge  of 
all."  "I  am  the  beginning  and  the  end." 
Jesus  is  never  afraid  to  claim  preeminence.  He 
loves  to  make  us  open  our  eyes  in  fixed  and  holy 
wonder.  *'He  taught  as  one  having  authority 
and  not  as  the  scribes."  Men  received  a  spiri- 
tual shock  in  His  presence.  From  the  humblest 
fisherman  in  Galilee  at  the  bottom,  clear  up  to 
cultured  Nicodemus  at  the  top, — to  everybody 
in  fact — He  was  an  amazing  man.  He  is  Him- 
self the  greatest  miracle  of  the  Gospels.  Grant- 
ing Him  all  other  miracles  follow. 

Now  the  first  thought  that  meets  us  in  this 
verse  is  the  thought  of  Personality.  **I,"  He 
says.  Let  us  start  out  with  that  tiny,  straight- 
up,  perpendicular  **I."  Jesus  always  begins 
with  Himself.  He  puts  the  emphasis  on  His  own 
person,  and  invites  men  not  to  the  truth  He  is 
proclaiming,  but  to  Himself.  The  first  funda- 
mental of  the  Christian  religion  is  Christ  Him- 
self. Let  us  drive  that  nail  permanently  home 
at  the  very  outset. 

The  first  question  He  ever  put  to  His  disciples 
was,  "Whom  do  men  say  that  I,  the  son  of  man, 
am?"  This  is  the  more  remarkable  when  we  re- 
member that  all  other  great  teachers  try  to 
efface  themselves.  Jesus  alone  among  seekers 
after  truth  thrusts  Himself  boldly  and  aggres- 


**mcab  ot  tbe  •QClorlO*'  49 

sively  into  the  foreground.  He  says,  "Follow 
me."  "Come  unto  me."  "Abide  in  me." 
"Believe  in  me."  "Love  me."  So  I  repeat, 
the  first  thing  that  meets  us  is  the  fact  of  Christ. 
He  asks  acceptance  not  only  for  the  truth  He  is 
proclaiming,  but  primarily  for  Himself.  He 
makes  Himself  the  centre  of  His  message.  His 
first  recorded  public  utterance  was  spoken  in  the 
synagogue  at  Nazareth.  "This  day  is  the 
Scripture  fulfilled  in  your  ears."  His  last  re- 
corded utterance  was  in  the  palace  of  the  High 
Priest.  "I  am  the  Christ;  hereafter  ye  shall 
see  me  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven."  So  I 
repeat  the  first  thing  that  confronts  us  is  the 
fact  of  Christ. 

And  He  confronts  us,  mark  you,  not  only  as 
a  fact  but  as  a  supernatural  fact.  He  comes  to 
us  in  the  holy  record  as  a  strange  being  of  mys- 
tery and  wonder,  claiming  an  other-world  con- 
nection. He  does  not  belong  to  the  inventory  of 
the  usual.  "Ye  are  from  beneath,  I  am  from 
above."  You  cannot  make  of  Jesus  a  normal 
being  unless  you  first  rip  and  gash  and  slash  the 
documents  to  your  heart's  reckless  content. 

Some  have  not  hesitated  to  do  this.  Indeed 
some  theological  surgeons  have  been  so  puzzled 
by  the  thread  of  the  miraculous  that  so  twines 
and  intertwines  itself  through  the  New  Testa- 
ment narratives,  that  they  have  decided  the 
easiest  thing  to  do  is  to  cut  the  thread  entirely, 


50  **Bo\\Q8  in  tbe  migbt" 

which  they  straightway  proceed  to  execute,  and 
so  deny  that  such  a  man  as  Jesus  ever  lived ;  the 
portrait,  say  they,  is  unquestionably  imaginary. 
Some  scholars  are  willing  to  surrender  all  that 
is  distinctive  about  the  Christian  faith  in  their 
passionate  desire  to  be  modern.  Then  they  turn 
about  and  coolly  inform  us  that  Christianity  re- 
mains unaffected  even  if  the  historical  part  of  it 
is  dismissed  as  symbolic,  that  our  faith  is  secure 
even  if  there  are  no  facts  to  confirm  it,  that 
Christ  is  simply  a  name  for  a  religious  experi- 
ence; in  other  words,  that  Christ  did  not  make 
the  Christian  faith,  that  the  Christian  faith  made 
Christ. 

But  most  of  us  are  like  little  children  listening 
to  a  story,  and  the  first  question  we  ask  is,  "Is 
this  story  true?"  The  creed  of  the  Church  has 
always  been  that  the  story  is  true,  that  God  came 
down  to  earth  in  the  life  of  a  real  man,  and  that 
the  record  of  that  life  can  be  subjected  to  the 
laws  of  documentary  evidence.  The  record  can- 
not be  rationalized.  Every  attempt  to  do  so  has 
failed.  Scholars  have  tried  to  explain  away  the 
mysterious  features  of  this  life  and  still  retain 
the  faith,  but  the  whole  narrative  is  so  strange, 
there  is  such  an  accumulation  of  the  ultra  sur- 
prising, the  air  is  so  heavily  scented  with  per- 
fumes that  are  unfamiliar,  that  the  only  way  to 
explain  the  story  is  to  accept  the  supernatural  in 
it,  or  give  up  the  historicity  altogether. 


**aBrea&  of  tbe  MorlO'*  5i 

The  next  thought  that  meets  us  in  this  text  is 
the  thought  of  a  Living  Personality.  He  is  not 
only  a  fact;  He  is  a  living  fact.  He  not  only 
says  **I";  He  says  "I  am."  He  is  not  simply 
a  remarkable  character  of  1900  years  ago ;  He  is 
a  remarkable  personage  to-day.  He  is  not  merely 
a  figure  of  the  dim  and  distant  bygone.  Of 
what  value  to  us  religiously  would  such  a  figure 
be?  He  is  not  a  great  "I  was,"  He  is  a  great 
"lam."  "I  am  the  bread  of  life."  "I  am  the 
living  bread. ' '  No  one  can  read  the  New  Testa- 
ment seriously  without  noting  how  constantly 
the  word  **life"  was  on  our  Lord's  lips.  The 
young  lawyer  said  to  Him,  "What  shall  I  do 
to  inherit  eternal  Ufe?"  Peter  said,  "To  whom 
shall  we  go  ?  Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal  life. ' ' 
Everybody  felt  that  somehow  Jesus  had  the 
strange  secret  of  life. 

Some  critics  would  make  of  God  a  dead  name, 
a  mere  impersonal  entity,  a  formula  for  the 
world's  development,  a  cold  bloodless  abstraction. 
Or  they  would  resolve  Him  into  a  great  absentee 
soulless  mechanic,  gazing  in  unconcern,  aloof 
and  apart,  at  the  amazing  spectacle  He  has  made 
and  set  in  motion.  He  has  created  things  and 
set  them  whirling  and  whizzing  and  buzzing 
through  space,  but  He  never  interferes  with  their 
workings  to-day.  In  fact  it  is  quite  possible  that 
He  cannot  if  He  wanted  to,  which  is  the  sad  part 
of  the  astonishing  arrangement.    He  has  given 


52  '*BonQB  in  tbe  fRigbt" 

the  whole  system  certain  laws  and  wound  it  up 
just  like  a  clock.  At  present  He  is  away  off 
watching  the  time.  This  is  the  theory  that  we 
call  Deism. 

Down  in  Chinatown,  San  Francisco,  the  poor 
superstitious  Oriental  wiU  go  apart  and  ring  a 
bell  to  call  up  the  sleeping  god.  And  some  Chris- 
tians act  that  way ;  they  seem  to  think  that  God  is 
absent  or  asleep.  Maurice  once  said  with  a  touch 
of  irony,  speaking  of  Carlyle,  that  he  (Carlyle) 
believed  in  a  God  who  lived  until  the  death  of 
Oliver  Cromwell.  But  that  will  not  suffice.  Of 
what  avail  is  our  faith  unless  we  believe  God  to 
be  present  in  the  life  of  to-day.  We  cannot  be 
helped  by  a  dead  hero.  We  need  a  living  power. 
The  whole  Christian  faith  is  a  protest  against 
the  idea  of  an  absentee  ruler.  That  conception 
leaves  no  standing  room  for  Christianity  at  all. 
The  teaching  of  Christ  is  that  God  has  pitched 
His  tent  among  us,  that  He  lives  with  us,  that 
He  is  our  Father.  He  is  not  an  antique.  We 
do  not  have  to  sing,  "In  the  sweet  by  and  by;** 
He  is  with  us  now.  He  is  a  living  God.  It  is 
Christ  Himself,  His  very  self,  who  is  our  life. 

The  great  characteristic  feature  of  the  Bible, 
I  repeat,  is  not  its  acceptance  of  God,  but  its 
acceptance  of  Him  as  a  living  God.  This  is  not 
simply  the  burden  of  the  New  Testament:  it  is 
the  burden  of  the  Old  Testament  too.  It  is  the 
great  bugle  note  of  prophets  and  apostles.    It 


**3Srca&  ot  tbeTimorl&*'  53 

runs  through  every  book,  every  chapter  almost. 
It  is  the  real  and  the  only  satisfactory  explana- 
tion of  the  miraculous.  The  Bible  is  full  of  the 
miraculous.  And  what  pray  does  the  miraculous 
mean?  It  means,  does  it  not,  that  this  world  of 
ours  is  a  living  world,  that  the  Creator  of  it  is  a 
living  Person.  Every  miracle  assures  us  that 
God  is  alive  and  immanent  and  active  and  co- 
operative in  the  great  scheme  of  things. 

I  often  think  of  that  story  told  of  Dr.  Dale. 
He  was  in  his  study  writing  an  Easter  sermon 
when  the  thought  gripped  him  that  his  Lord  was 
living.  He  jumped  up  excitedly  and  paced  the 
floor  repeating  to  himself :  *' Why,  Christ  is  alive, 
Christ  is  alive.  His  ashes  are  warm.  He  is  not 
a  great  *I  was,'  He  is  the  great  'I  am.'  " 

Let  us  remember,  too,  that  the  Gospel  story 
is  not  after  all  the  supreme  historical  document. 
The  Church  is  the  supreme  historical  document. 
Christ  lives  to-day  in  the  Church  and  in  the 
Sacraments.  We  live  as  Christians  through 
union  with  Him.  How  a  dead  Christ  can  ex- 
plain the  Christian  Church  is  a  mighty  difficult 
problem,  for  all  agree  that  the  Church  is  built 
not  on  the  death  of  our  Lord,  nor  on  His  life, 
nor  on  His  teachings,  but  on  His  Resurrection. 
(**When  you  see  a  long  train  pushed  backwards 
round  a  curve,  you  know  there  is  something 
pushing  it.")  But  even  granting  it  possible,  a 
more  difficult  problem  arises,  how  can  a  dead 


54  "  Sottas  in  tbe  "Bigbt " 

Christ  explain  a  converted  soul?  This  is  the 
supreme  inexplicable  mystery.  For  it  must  ever 
be  borne  in  mind  that  this  living  bread  is  a  life- 
giving  bread.  It  is  a  power  not  only  to  support 
life,  but  also  to  impart  life.  Natural  bread  put 
into  a  dead  man's  mouth  will  not  make  him  live. 
But  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  living  bread,  and 
when  He  touches  the  dead  lips  of  a  penitent 
sinner,  life  comes  into  them.  He  creates  as  well 
as  sustains.  He  is  life  for  the  dead  as  well  as 
food  for  the  living. 

Oh,  we  cannot  dismiss  this  man  Jesus.  He 
calmly  and  patiently  refuses  to  be  dismissed. 
Men  say  He  is  not  real  and  never  was.  They 
say  His  story  is  an  invention.  Others  mock 
Him,  hate  Him,  crucify  Him.  They  spit  on  Him 
and  rail  at  Him.  They  say  His  Church  is  the 
hotbed  of  persecution  and  tyranny.  They  drive 
Him  away  from  their  presence  with  a  sharp 
scourge  of  invectives,  but  He  returns.  Back  He 
comes  and  stands  and  calls  and  beckons,  so  meek, 
so  manly,  so  human,  so  divine; — a  mighty  love, 
a  love  **That  will  not  let  us  go," 

"  I  fled  Him  down  the  nights  and  down  the  days, 
I  fled  Him  down  the  arches  of  the  years, 
I  fled  Him  down  the  Labyrinthine  ways  of  mine 

own  mind 
And  in  the  mist  of  tears 
I  hid  from  Him,  and  under  running  laughter 
Up  vistaed  hopes  I  sped, 
And  shot,  precipitated. 


**3Brea&  of  tbc  TKaorlD"  55 

Adown  Titanic  glooms  and  fears, 
From  those  strong  feet  that  followed,  followed 
after." 

But  He  is  not  only  a  personality  and  a  living 
personality.  The  passage  assures  us  that  He  is 
a  Communicating  Personality.  He  communicates 
Himself.  If  we  give  ourselves  to  Him  He  will 
give  Himself  to  us.  He  is  the  bread  of  life. 
*'The  bread  which  I  give  is  my  flesh  which  I 
will  give  for  the  life  of  the  world."  Our  God  is 
always  a  giving  God.  The  sun  gives  his  light, 
the  sky  gives  its  rain,  the  earth  gives  its  harvest. 
There  is  no  chest  for  selfish  hoarding  in  all  the 
works  of  the  good  Lord  anywhere. 

To  be  sure  He  is  not  here  speaking  of  the 
Holy  Sacrament.  That  came  long  after.  The 
Holy  Sacrament  teaches  in  a  graphic  way  what 
this  sermon  was  meant  to  teach  in  a  didactic 
way,  viz.,  that  the  spiritual  life,  like  the  physical, 
must  be  nourished  and  fed.  It  must  be  min- 
istered to  from  without.  Jesus  Christ  is  bread. 
He  is  the  * '  Bread  of  the  world  in  mercy  broken. ' ' 

Bread  is  the  food  of  the  world.  The  king  eats  it 
in  his  palace  and  the  peasant  in  his  hut.  The 
President  eats  it  at  the  banquet  and  the  soldier  in 
the  trench.  God  makes  no  confectionery;  He 
makes  plain  bread  and  He  calls  it  the  staff  of  life. 
This  body  of  ours  needs  many  ingredients.  It 
needs  oxygen,  hydrogen,  nitrogen,  carbon,  lime, 
soda,  phosphorus.  And  they  are  all  in  bread.  This 


56  '•Songs  in  tbe  tMQbt** 

loaf  of  bread  contains  them  all.  It  is  the  pri- 
mary, the  ultimate  gift  of  God.  You  might  put 
a  man  round  a  festal  board  with  edibles  and 
delicacies  fit  for  a  pampered  belly-god,  but 
if  he  does  nothing  but  look  on  and  admire 
the  china  he  will  starve  despite  the  dainties. 
There  is  light  all  about  us,  but  the  only  light 
that  illumines  our  path  is  the  light  to  which  our 
optic  nerve  responds.  There  is  an  old  proverb 
that  "Truth  is  mighty  and  will  prevail,"  but  it 
is  only  a  half-truth.  It  is  true  that  truth  is 
mighty,  but  it  cannot  prevail  until  it  finds  its 
way  into  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  men. 
Truth  on  the  mantelpiece  covered  with  dust  is 
a  helpless,  impotent  thing.  Truth  on  the  mantel 
with  a  dry  blanket  of  dust  covering  it,  is  as 
helpless  as  the  average  church  with  a  wet  blanket 
of  worldliness. 

And  the  message  that  Jesus  is  constantly  pro- 
claiming is  that  just  as  bread  is  the  food  of  the 
body  so  He  Himself  is  the  nourishment  of  the 
soul.  As  we  partake  of  Him  our  daily  waste  is 
repaired.  In  Him  all  our  need  is  supplied  ac- 
cording to  His  riches  in  glory.  He  not  only 
communicates  wisdom  and  righteousness  and 
sanctification  and  redemption.  He  communi- 
cates Himself.  He  looked  out  upon  the  world 
and  it  was  a  living  world  to  Him,  because  it  was 
God's  world.  And  He  says  I  am  the  living 
bread  for  this  livfhg  world.    The  mind  eats 


"BreaD  of  tbe  morlb*'  57 

this  living  bread  by  thinking  about  Him;  the 
soul  eats  it  by  trusting  Him  and  loving  Him; 
the  will  eats  it  by  surrendering  to  His  will.  We 
feed  on  Christ  when  in  any  way  or  through  any 
experience  we  draw  near  to  Him.  It  is  a  sym- 
bolic statement  of  the  truth  that  the  life  and 
growth  and  health  of  the  soul  is  as  dependent 
upon  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  the  life  and 
growth  and  health  of  the  body  are  upon  natural 
food.  It  is  the  great  mystery  of  spiritual  nutri- 
tion. 

Mystery,  did  I  say  ?  Of  course  that  is  the  right 
word  to  use.  But  let  us  not  be  too  timorous  of  ap- 
proach. Is  it  any  more  mysterious  than  the  mys- 
tery of  natural  nutrition?  Who  can  explain  the 
miracle  of  a  healthy  human  appetite?  Who  can 
trace  the  hidden  steps  by  which  our  daily  bread 
is  transformed  into  blood  and  bone  and  sinew? 
**How  can  the  mute  unconscious  bread  become 
the  living  tongue?"  The  corn  eaten  by  the 
animal  is  transformed  into  flesh.  Man  takes  that 
flesh  and  transmutes  it  into  blood  and  brain  and 
thought  and  psychology  and  poetry.  Who  can 
understand  it?  What  hunger  is,  how  food  be- 
comes part  of  our  bodies,  what  the  laws  of  growth 
are  is  still  as  great  a  mystery  to  us  as  was  the 
picture  of  the  Cyclops  at  his  meals  to  Ulysses. 
Two  men  for  breakfast,  two  for  dinner  and  two 
for  supper,  with  large  casks  of  milk  and  wine, 
made  the  bold  Trojan  hero  open  his  eyes  in 


58  ''Sonas  in  tbe  Tliabt" 

puzzling  and  bewildering  wonder.  Who  can 
explain  how  the  sap  of  the  plant  adds  new  tissue 
to  its  structure?  Bear  in  mind  that  only  each 
year 's  growth  is  living ;  the  rest  is  all  dead  wood 
which  would  decay  speedily  were  it  not  that  it  is 
protected  by  the  living  cells  on  the  surface.  The 
wood  of  the  oak  tree,  for  instance,  grows  from 
within  outward ;  but  its  bark  grows  from  without 
inward,  while  its  roots  grow  at  their  extrem- 
ities. The  mystery  of  growth!  Who  can  ex- 
plain it? 

Or  who  can  follow  and  interpret  the  processes 
by  which  the  mind  of  the  thinker  feeds  upon 
truth?  Scholars  like  Carlyle  and  Goethe  have 
simply  devoured  books  and  made  these  books  a 
part  of  their  own  mental  furniture.  Wordsworth 
on  the  other  hand,  like  Augustus  Comte,  turned 
away  from  books,  rarely  indeed  read  a  book, 
turned  rather  to  the  great  out-of-doors  for  his 
refreshment.  He  drank  in  the  secret  of  the  sky, 
the  lakes,  the  hills.  This  is  the  mark  of  all  truly 
great  men.  Intellectual  assimilation  is  the  power 
to  take  in  and  absorb  and  make  one's  own,  the 
wealth  of  the  world.  Everything  has  its  food. 
We  say  grace  before  meat,  but  as  Charles  Lamb 
suggests,  why  should  we  not  say  grace  before 
Milton?  Is  it  because  we  value  the  body  more 
than  we  do  the  mind?  The  thinker  feeds  upon 
truth,  the  artist  feeds  upon  beauty,  the  lover 
feeds  upon  affection,  the  imagination  feeds  upon 


"BreaD  ot  tbe  MorlO"  59 

hope,  ambition  feeds  upon  power,  the  soul  feeds 
upon  God. 

One  last  word  needs  to  be  said  and  it  is  this : 
If  one  is  to  grow  he  must  not  only  have  food, 
but  he  must  have  the  right  kind  of  food,  the 
food  he  can  assimilate.  Have  you  ever  visited 
a  babies'  hospital  and  gone  through  the  wards 
and  studied  the  little  pinched  faces  of  half- 
starved  children?  They  have  no  particular  dis- 
ease. They  are  just  weak  from  lack  of  the 
proper  nourishment.  The  physician  studies  each 
case  individually  and  at  last  works  out  the 
proper  formula.  And  the  spiritual  problem  is 
not  only  to  find  the  food ;  sometimes  the  real  diffi- 
culty is  to  find  the  formula.  Food  means  life, 
growth,  strength ;  but  it  must  be  food  of  the  right 
kind.  The  Lord  Jesus  suits  every  ease,  fulfills 
every  need,  meets  every  experience.  As  certain 
insects  are  coloured  by  the  leaves  on  which  they 
feed,  just  so  if  we  feed  on  Christ,  we  will  become 
like  Him  and  our  prayer  will  be  answered. 

"  Give  me  a  faithful  heart 
Likeness  to  Thee, 
That  each  departing  day 
Henceforth  may  see 
Some  work  of  love  begim, 
Some  deed  of  kindness  done, 
Some  wanderer  sought  and  won. 
Something  for  Thee." 


IV 


"WE  TURN  UNFILLED  TO  THEE 
AGAIN  »* 

"Blessed  are  they  that  do  hunger  and 
thirst  after  righteousness  for  they  shall  be 
filled." — Matthew  5 :  6. 

HIS  is  a  great  saying.  It  is 
so  great  that  we  will  never  be 
able  to  grasp  it  in  its  rich 
and  rounded  completeness.  It 
speaks  of  being  satisfied;  it 
speaks  of  the  only  thing  that 
can  satisfy — righteousness.  And  the  article  is 
used,  the  righteousness,  the  one  real  righteous- 
ness, the  righteousness  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
Let  us  not  quibble  over  the  word.  Let  us  not 
give  to  it  a  theological  twist  or  a  legal  signifi- 
cance remote  from  life.  Moffat  in  his  version 
translates  the  word  Goodness.  **  Blessed  are  they 
who  hunger  and  thirst  after  goodness." 

Now  to  hunger  and  thirst  after  a  thing  is  to 
feel  that  we  need  it  and  need  it  badly,  need  it  so 
badly  that  we  are  determined  to  have  it,  whatever 
the  cost.  The  Master  takes  the  most  familiar  of 
physical  cravings,  the  appetite  for  meat  and  drink, 
60 


'"mc  Zwvn  TantHle^  to  Ubee  Haain  **  6f 

and  applies  these  cravings  to  the  soul.  He  is  not 
asserting  the  happiness  of  goodness  in  itself,  but 
the  happiness  of  those  who  hunger  and  thirst 
after  goodness.  The  Lord  looks  upon  the  heart.  It 
is  not  a  question  of  what  we  are,  but  of  what  we 
want  to  be.  He  puts  to  our  credit  not  what  we 
have,  but  what  we  wish  to  have.  Our  desires 
become  our  deeds,  our  longings  our  possessions. 
It  is  an  attitude  He  has  in  mind,  an  aspiration. 
Let  me  repeat  that,  please.  The  strange 
feature  of  the  hunger  and  thirst  that  receives 
the  blessing  is  that  it  is  continuous.  The  crav- 
ing is  never  satisfied.  Our  physical  desire  does 
not  die  because  we  ate  to-day;  it  comes  again 
to-morrow.  There  is  no  blessing  for  those  who 
have  already  attained.  The  hunger  and  thirst 
must  last  as  long  as  life  lasts.  The  longing  is 
for  the  unreachable.  This  is  the  strange  contra- 
diction of  the  beatitude.  There  is  no  room  in  the 
New  Testament  for  a  stationary  religion.  There 
are  always  heights  above  to  be  scaled.  The  :  i  jry 
is  told  of  a  man  in  the  Patent  Office  <l«:\vn  in 
Washington  who  resigned  his  posrtioa  m  1835 
because  he  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  about 
the  last  of  the  inventions  had  been  made,  and  his 
office  would  soon  close.  That  was  almost  a  cen- 
tury ago,  and  still  the  inventions  come  pouring 
in  thicker  and  faster  than  ever.  There  are  no 
limits  to  the  field  of  invention.  It  is  as  bound- 
less as  space.    And  the  possibilities  of  the  soul 


62  **  Songs  in  tbe  IRigbt" 

are  equally  rich  and  ample.  The  thirst  of  the 
soul  is  never  quenched.  It  is  like  the  asymptote 
to  the  parabola  in  that  the  line  only  reaches  the 
curve  at  infinity.  The  attainable  is  not  attained 
until  we  ''awake  in  His  likeness.'* 

Then,  too,  it  must  be  noted  that  hunger  is  the 
outcome  of  health.  There  is  an  old  proverb  that 
' ' hunger  finds  no  fault  with  the  cooking. "  "To 
the  hungiy  no  bread  is  bad. ' '  In  every  healthy 
organization  there  is  a  craving  for  food.  When 
appetite  fails  and  food  is  distasteful  then  the 
body  is  sick.  For  hunger  is  a  healthy  human 
sensation.  It  is  our  most  compelling  passion. 
It  insists  on  satisfaction.  Where  it  does  not 
exist  the  functions  are  not  normal.  Disease  is 
at  work.  Nor  is  it  a  condition  that  comes  at  will. 
We  cannot  will  ourselves  to  be  hungry.  We 
cannot  put  an  edge  on  appetite  if  the  appetite 
be  not  there,  except  by  some  questionable  tem- 
porary stimulant;  just  as  at  the  old  Roman 
feasts  men  would  drink  bitter  mixtures  to  make 
them  thirsty.  And  likewise  a  wholesome  hunger 
of  soul  can  only  come  from  a  soul  in  health. 
There  must  be  poverty  of  spirit  before  God. 
There  must  be  mourning  over  sin  and  a  godly 
sorrow  that  worketh  repentance.  There  must 
be  an  inward  cleansing.  There  must  be  meek- 
ness of  spirit  and  purity  of  heart  before  there 
can  be  a  real  yearning  after  any  spiritual  con- 
formity to  the  Will  of  God, 


**  Wic  Uurn  'ClnfilleO  to  Ubee  Haain  •♦  63 

And,  furthermore,  the  quest  for  goodness  is 
the  only  quest  that  is  certain  of  fulfillment.  In 
this  blessed  crusade  there  can  be  no  disappoint- 
ments, no  failures.  We  have  oui*  Lord's  own 
word  for  it.  The  thing  we  need  to  worry  about 
is  not  shall  I  arrive?  But  do  I  really  want  to 
arrive?  Do  I  want  to  arrive  earnestly  enough 
to  put  forth  a  sustained  compelling  effort?  If 
I  do,  it  is  not  possible  to  fail.  Goodness  is  the 
one  thing  that  every  soul  may  have.  They  shall 
be  filled  is  the  promise. 

Fed,  Filled,  Satisfied!  The  peacemakers  are 
going  to  be  called  the  children  of  God ;  the  merci- 
ful are  going  to  obtain  mercy ;  the  mourners  are 
going  to  be  comforted ;  the  meek  are  going  to  in- 
herit the  earth.  But  those  who  hunger  and  thirst 
after  righteousness  are  going  to  be  satisfied.  The 
reward  is  a  purely  spiritual  one.  There  is  not  a 
hint  of  anything  worldly  in  it.  Righteousness 
is  a  thing  that  suits  and  satisfies  completely  the 
cravings  of  the  soul. 

And  now  on  the  other  hand  let  us  turn  to 
some  of  the  voices  of  the  world.  For  the  world 
singles  out  its  allurements  too,  and  holds  them 
up  to  be  sought  after  and  struggled  for  and  ad- 
mired. Some  of  them  are  legitimate;  some  of 
them  are  most  attractive;  some  of  them  are 
noble  and  worthy  and  fine.  Some  adorn  a  man 's 
character  and  add  to  his  usefulness  and  power. 

(1)     Would  it  have  been  surprising,  for  in- 


64  "Sonos  in  tbe  niQbt** 

stance,  if  Christ  had  said — Blessed  are  they 
who  do  hunger  and  thirst  after  knowledge? 
How  great  a  thing  is  knowledge !  '  *  Knowledge  is 
the  wing  wherewith  we  fly  to  Heaven,"  said 
Shakespeare.  There  is  not  much  danger  these 
days  of  underrating  the  value  of  knowledge. 
The  pursuit  of  truth,  the  unveiling  of  nature's 
secrets,  the  acquisition  of  sound  learning  is  one 
of  the  noblest  aspirations  of  the  human  mind. 
Alexander  the  Great  so  valued  learning  that  he 
used  to  say  he  was  more  indebted  to  Aristotle 
for  giving  him  knowledge  than  to  Philip  his 
father  for  giving  him  life. 

"Knowledge  is  power,"  said  Bacon;  on  which 
another  comments  that  knowledge  is  power  in 
the  sense  that  wood  is  fuel.  Wood  on  fire  is 
fuel  and  knowledge  on  fire  is  power.  There  is 
no  more  power  in  knowledge  of  itself  than  there 
is  in  pieces  of  sticks  or  lumps  of  coal.  Knowl- 
edge is  not  power  until  it  burns  and  sparkles  in. 
some  earnest,  consecrated  life.  When  such  a  life 
hungers  and  thirsts  for  knowledge  then  it  be- 
comes power. 

But  then  the  question  arises — Are  such  lives 
particularly  blessed  ?  Are  they  satisfied  ?  Have 
they  foimd  the  secret  of  peace  and  rest?  Has 
it  been  your  observation  that  scholars  as  a  rule 
are  a  very  contented  class?  We  recall  what  the 
poet  said  of  that  great  Elizabethan  genius  who 
was  the  father  of  modern  science,  "the  wisest, 


**  Me  Uurn  TIlntiaeD  to  Ubee  Hgain  ♦♦   65 

brightest,  meanest  of  mankind."  Does  not 
Goethe  in  Faust  give  us  the  picture  of  a  soul 
drawn  away  by  admiration  for  the  gifts  of  in- 
tellect to  the  most  miserable  moral  ruin?  Does 
not  Tennyson  in  his  "Palace  of  Art"  f-ive  us 
the  experience  of  a  young  woman  whose  supreme 
passion  was  to  know?  But  after  her  quest  was 
gained  and  her  palace  completed,  a  strange  lone- 
liness creeps  into  her  heart  and  she  is  shot 
through  with  the  pangs  of  disappointment,  and 
in  despair  she  throws  her  royal  robes  away,  ex- 
claiming, * '  Build  me  a  cottage  in  the  dale  where 
I  may  mourn  and  pray." 

We  have  seen  side  by  side  the  scholar  and 
the  saint.  We  have  admired  the  one  and  we 
have  revered  and  loved  the  other.  We  have 
seen  the  man  of  genius  with  his  scientific  temper, 
his  trained  faculties.  We  have  marvelled  at  his 
brilliant  powers,  but  we  have  noted  his  cold  and 
cruel  heart — selfish,  jealous,  proud,  dictatorial. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  have  known  men  of  very 
ordinary  gifts,  but  tender,  sympathetic,  self- 
controlled,  patient,  kind,  loving.  Christlike;  and 
the  inward  judgment  of  our  hearts  has  been,  he 
is  the  greater  man,  he  is  the  happier  man. 

Our  deeper  natures  tell  us  that  splendid  as 
the  culture  of  the  mind  is,  there  is  something  far 
more  splendid.  There  is  a  vastly  superior  order 
of  merit.  The  immediate  verdict  of  the  soul  is 
that  the  highest  law  of  man  is  the  law  of  right- 


66  **Sonas  in  tbe  IRiabt*' 

eousness.  Some  one  has  said  that  Christianity 
is  the  restoration  of  righteousness  to  its  rightful 
place  among  the  ideals  of  human  ambition. 
Better  than  scholarship,  better  than  cleverness, 
better  than  fame  is  goodness.  "We  talk  a  lot 
about  the  duty  of  goodness,  but  we  do  not  talk 
half  enough  about  the  beauty  of  goodness  or  the 
rewards  of  goodness  or  the  joys  of  goodness. 
"Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  his  right- 
eousness and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto 
you." 

Most  of  us  cannot  hope  to  enrich  the  world  by 
our  thought.  It  is  not  very  likely  that  we  shall 
ever  blaze  a  trail  to  some  hitherto  unknown  truth 
and  so  make  the  path  safer  and  easier  for  those 
who  follow.  Yet  there  is  a  way  nevertheless  by 
which  we  can  become  real  benefactors.  There  is 
a  blessedness  higher  than  to  be  able  to  bequeath 
some  brilliant  secret  to  the  world.  We  may  all, 
by  God 's  help,  add  to  the  world 's  stock  of  good- 
ness. We  can  all  leave  behind  us  a  life  lived  in 
the  secret  of  the  Master  and  ruled  by  His  charity, 
a  life  rescued  from  sin  and  dedicated  to  loving 
service. 

(2)  Others  would  make  power  the  ultimate 
of  life.  They  would  offer  the  prize  to  the  suc- 
cessful. It  may  be  the  power  of  leadership  or 
skill  or  heroism  or  popularity  or  position  or  rank 
or  perhaps  simply  of  some  social  distinction. 
And  what  we  aim  at  being  we  generally  secure. 


**  HCle  XTurn  'ClnfiUe&  to  Ubee  Haain  **   61 

When  men  set  their  hearts  on  some  goal  they 
usually  arrive. 

Here  is  the  man  whose  God  is  gold.  His  aim 
is  to  pile  up  money  and  yet  more  money,  be- 
cause money  is  power.  For  this  he  toils  and 
sweats  and  slaves.  It  is  the  gnawing  passion  of 
his  life.  Life  to  him  is  bounded  on  the  north 
by  timber  and  on  the  south  by  railroads.  The 
chief  end  of  this  man  is  to  possess,  because  posses- 
sion in  his  opinion  is  satisfaction.  To  be  sure, 
he  is  running  after  an  illusion,  but  then  that 
matters  not,  for  to  him  the  illusion  is  real.  "We 
know  he  is  foolish,  but  then  he  thinks  he  is  wise. 
It  is  the  tragedy  of  worldly  ambition  seeking 
satisfaction  where  satisfaction  never  yet  in  all 
the  long  centuries  has  been  found. 

Here  is  Sisyphus  rolling  the  stone  up  the  cliff, 
and  just  as  he  is  about  to  put  forth  one  last 
mighty  heave  and  land  it  on  the  summit,  down 
it  plunges  into  the  valley  again.  It  is  the 
tragedy  of  the  world,  I  say — seeking  satisfaction 
in  the  impossible,  in  the  chase  for  the  unreal. 
Alas !  Joy  riding  is  not  the  road  to  joy,  never 
has  been. 

Let  us  visit  this  magnate  resting  in  his  luxuri- 
ous davenport  vsdth  gold  and  silver  and  jewelry 
sparkling  all  around  him.  Happy  man,  you 
say.  Why,  he  does  not  know  what  the  word 
means.  His  house  is  large,  his  retinue  is  be- 
wildering.   He  has  drunk  every  cup,  quaffed 


6S  **  Songs  in  tbe  migbt** 

every  ^ehalice,  and  then  set  down  the  goblet  with 
a  groan.  He  remembers  how  sweet  the  crust 
tasted  when  he  was  a  boy.  He  is  not  satisfied 
climbing  the  ladder,  nor  is  he  satisfied  after 
reaching  the  top — the  fact  being  there  is  never 
any  top ;  the  top  is  always  a  receding  equation. 
Here  is  a  letter  from  California.  The  man 
writes:  "The  climate  is  marvellous,  the  moun- 
tains are  glorious,  the  touring  is  finer  than  any- 
thing I  have  seen,  the  table  is  all  that  heart 
could  wish  but,  ah  me,  I  have  no  appetite." 
What  a  wail  from  the  West !  A  few  weeks  later 
he  passed  on  to  **a  far  serener  clime." 

One  of  our  magazines  recently  instituted  in- 
quiries touching  the  private  lives  of  our  million- 
aires, and  these  sons  of  success  certainly  have 
their  full  cup  of  wormwood.  One  who  has  made 
his  pile  in  the  wheat  market  by  the  irony  of  fate 
is  a  martyr  of  dyspepsia;  another  has  arterial 
sclerosis ;  others  have  domestic  skeletons  in  their 
closets  that  suck  the  syrup  out  of  life.  ''When 
I  was  a  farmer's  boy,"  one  of  them  writes,  "I 
loved  the  smell  of  the  new  mown  hay,  although 
I  did  not  relish  much  pitching  it.  And  my 
pillow  at  night  was  sweet  as  the  clover  blossoms. 
But  I  wanted  to  come  to  the  city  and  live  in  a 
mansion.  And  now  I'm  in  the  city  and  I  have 
my  mansion.  I  have  offices  and  clerks  and 
stenotypes  and  telephones  and  dictaphones,  but 
I  am  tired  of  it  all.    The  click  of  the  typewriter 


**  Me  Uurn  "GlnfiUeb  to  Ubee  again  **  69 

annoys  me.  And  sometimes  I  lean  my  head  on 
my  hand  and  sigh  for  the  old  clover  days  and 
the  hay  I  used  to  pitch  and  the  chaff  pillow  I 
used  to  fondle  and  hug. ' ' 

"All  me!"  writes  Emerson,  **if  the  rich  were 
only  half  as  rich  as  the  poor  think  they  are." 
When  you  grasp  a  bird  it  ceases  to  sing.  It  is 
only  the  uncaptured  things  that  make  music. 
Many  a  boy  after  climbing  a  high  tree  in  search 
of  a  nest  finds  the  nest  empty.  We  hear  the  ex- 
pression so  often  * '  happy  as  a  lord, "  * '  happy  as 
a  king;"  but  the  testimony  of  those  who  know 
seems  to  be  that  kings  and  lords  are  not  par- 
ticularly fortunate  in  this  regard.  * '  Uneasy  lies 
the  head  that  wears  a  crown. ' '  There  is  a  quaint 
old  rhyme  that  ought  not  to  be  forgotten: 

"  The  king  can  drink  the  best  of  wine,  so  can  I; 
And  has  enough  when  he  would  dine,  so  do  I; 
But  cannot  order  rain  or  shine,  nor  can  I; 
Then  Where's  the  difference,  let  me  see. 
Betwixt  my  Lord,  the  king,  and  me?  " 

(3)  Then  there  are  men  and  women  to-day 
who  have  a  hunger  for  justice,  especially  for 
social  justice  and  industrial  good-will.  They 
look  forward  to  the  time  when  brotherhood  will 
sway  the  hearts  of  men,  when  oppression  and 
cut-throat  selfishness  will  disappear,  when  juster 
laws  and  a  better  government  shall  prevail,  when 
the  toiling  multitudes  and  the  disinherited  shall 
have  a  fairer  chance,  when  war  shall  be  no  more, 


70  **Souos  in  tbe  migbt" 

in  a  word,  when  the  new  earth  and  the  new  ordec 
shall  descend  out  of  heaven  from  God. 

But  do  these  things  bring  satisfaction  and 
contentment  to  the  heart?  That  is  the  point  at 
issue.  Perhaps  no  man  ever  laboured  more 
earnestly  for  social  improvement  than  John 
Stuart  Mill.  In  a  chapter  of  his  Autobiography- 
he  describes  the  disappointment  of  soul  he  ex- 
perienced when  in  vision  one  night  he  saw  his 
plans  realized.  The  earth  was  redeemed  and 
the  way  he  felt  about  it  was,  that  it  was  not 
worth  while.  It  was  nothing  but  "Vanity  of 
Vanities."  And  you  will  recall  how  he  de- 
scribes the  melancholy  that  for  months  came  over 
him,  and  from  which  he  was  rescued  only  by  the 
influence  of  the  poet  Wordsworth. 

I  believe  his  experience  is  not  unusual.  Be- 
cause when  any  hope  in  this  life  is  realized  there 
is  nothing  more  to  hope  for  unless  we  can  look 
forward  to  an  after-state.  What  do  interna- 
tional justice  and  democracy  amount  to  unless 
we  can  look  forward  to  a  better  order  beyond? 
Is  it  really  worth  while  making  the  masses  hap- 
pier and  giving  them  better  laws,  if  the  whole 
business  is  to  terminate  at  the  tomb  ?  Germany 
has  constructed  a  magnificent  railroad  to  hell, 
but  what  good  has  it  done  her  ?  Is  contentment 
the  true  goal  of  social  justice?  Or  is  gratifica- 
tion? Or  is  character?  Are  people  any  hap- 
pier to-day  than  they  were  one  hundred  years 


**  TRIle  tCurn  'Clntille&  to  Ubee  again  "  71 

ago,  when  the  world  lived  closer  to  nature?  It 
is  at  least  questionable.  Our  aim  is  not  the  per- 
fection of  a  social  state  but  the  development  of 
the  soul  along  the  lines  of  an  endless  life.  If  we 
set  our  affections  on  terrestrial  reform  alone,  the 
time  may  come  when  there  will  be  no  new  slums 
to  conquer.  To  be  sure  that  would  be  a  most 
desirable  condition,  but  would  it  satisfy?  Let 
us  not  lose  sight  of  the  logic  of  the  thing.  That 
is  not  true  satisfaction  which  has  the  world  for  a 
background.  True  satisfaction  has  immortality 
behind  it — and  before.  As  St.  Augustine  has 
said,  "Thou  hast  made  us  for  Thyself,  and  our 
hearts  are  restless  until  they  rest  in  Thee. ' ' 

(4)  And  this  leads  us  back  to  the  Master. 
It  is  heart  excellence  that  really  satisfies,  noth- 
ing else.  "We  do  not  need  to  dine  on  nightingales* 
tongues  to  have  a  feast  for  the  soul.  Goodness 
is  its  own  reward.  The  flower  carries  its  own 
odour.  "Blessed  are  they  who  do  hunger  and 
thirst  after  righteousness,  for  they  shall  be 
filled." 

Take  Bernard's  great  hymn,  "Jesus  Thou  joy 
of  loving  hearts. "  It  is  a  Latin  chant  of  more  than 
two  hundred  lines.  It  was  born  in  an  hour  of  in- 
timate communion  as  he  was  partaking  the  bread 
and  wine  of  the  Holy  Supper.  Suddenly  this 
burst  of  devotion  leaped  to  his  heart,  "We  turn 
unfilled  to  Thee  again."  And  when  we  read  his 
life  we  feel  surely  indeed  he  might  have  been 


72  "Songs  in  tbe  tMQDt** 

well  satisfied  with  the  bliss  that  earth  imparts. 
For  remember  who  this  man  Bernard  was.  He 
was  far  and  away  the  greatest  man  of  his  time — 
an  eloquent  preacher,  a  scholar,  a  statesman,  and 
best  of  all  a  saint.  He  was  a  man  who  made 
Europe  tremble  by  the  sheer  power  of  righteous- 
ness. When  two  Cardinals,  Anaeletus  and  Inno- 
cent, contested  for  the  papal  chair  Bernard  was 
made  arbiter  of  their  claims.  That  itself  was  a 
commanding  tribute.  No  name  stood  higher  in 
the  whole  Christian  world  than  the  name  of 
Bernard.  Luther  called  him  the  best  monk  that 
ever  lived.  He  was  the  most  influential  man  of 
his  age.  And  as  he  grew  in  years  he  grew  in  in- 
fluence. Surely  if  ever  a  man  had  reason  to  be 
intoxicated  with  the  bliss  that  earth  can  give 
that  man  was  Bernard  of  Clairvaux.  Yet  listen 
to  what  he  says,  ''Earth  can  never  satisfy  the 
infinite  spirit  of  man.'* 

"  Jesus  Thou  joy  of  loving  hearts, 
Thou  fount  of  life,  Thou  light  of  men, 
From  the  best  bliss  that  earth  imparts 
We  turn  unfilled  to  Thee  again." 

Just  one  point  more  awaits  our  reference. 
"They  shall  be  filled."  "Whosoever  drinketh 
of  this  water  shall  never  thirst."  "They  shall 
be  filled."  Filled  with  what?  Why,  filled  of 
course  with  what  they  desire  to  have  and  to  be 
Filled  with  righteousness.    They  shall  be  right- 


**  Wit  Uurn  Unfillet)  to  Xlbee  H^ain  ♦•   73 

eous.  They  shall  be  like  Him.  God  has  made 
man's  spirit  so  great  that  no  created  thing  can 
possibly  feed  it,  much  less  fill  it.  There  is  a 
vacuum  in  the  soul  that  nothing  can  fill  but  faith 
in  God.  The  world's  concoction  is  like  rich  con- 
fectionery to  a  starving  man.  Only  spiritual 
things  can  satisfy  the  spiritual  life.  "My  soul 
thirsteth  for  the  living  God."  To  be  sure,  as 
intimated  already,  this  reaches  far  beyond  the 
present.  It  can  only  be  true  in  its  literal  com- 
pleteness when  we  stand  in  Zion  and  before  God. 
Because  to  be  satisfied  is  to  cease  from  hungering 
and  that  must  never  be.  The  moment  hunger 
ceases  that  very  moment  there  follows  decline. 
Growth  in  grace  and  in  the  divine  likeness  must 
go  on  forever. 

Bishop  Creighton  once  said  that  the  greatest 
danger  of  the  twentieth  century  would  be  the 
"absence  of  high  aspirations."  On  yonder  hill 
I  see  the  horizon  line,  but  when  I  climb  the  hill 
and  put  out  my  hand  to  touch  it,  the  line  re- 
treats and  is  just  as  far  off  as  ever.  So  when  I 
know  one  truth  I  see  another.  No  king  of 
thought  need  ever  sigh  that  there  are  no  more 
worlds  to  conquer.  Our  reward  is  in  the  search, 
not  in  the  attainment.  We  grasp  the  object  of 
our  quest  to  find  it  is  not  after  all  our  quest. 
Our  terminus  ad  quem  when  we  reach  it  be- 
comes a  terminus  a  quo.  We  are  on  a  journey. 
What  is  behind  is  interesting  but  it  is  not  half 


74  '•Songs  in  tbe  Biabt*' 

so  interesting  as  what  is  before.  The  goal  is 
nothing,  the  trip  is  everything.  We  are  chil- 
dren of  the  infinite  and  only  the  infinite  can  be 
our  eventual  home.  If  you  eat  a  meal  you  lose 
your  appetite,  but  if  you  feed  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  your  appetite  is  intensified  and  you  cry 
for  more.    '  *  More  about  Jesus  would  I  know. ' ' 

I  remember  some  years  ago  reading  a  little 
story  that  greatly  impressed  me.  The  story,  if 
I  remember  rightly,  was  called  "The  Windows 
of  Heaven.**  Two  spirits  were  in  the  eternal 
world.  One  felt  extremely  happy  and  at  home ; 
the  other  seemed  lost  and  uncomfortable.  She 
said,  * '  I  was  a  rich  woman  on  earth.  I  had  every- 
thing that  heart  could  wish.  But  I  feel  cold  and 
out  of  place  here,'*  Then  looking  up  into  the 
eyes  of  her  companion  she  remarked,  "I  seem  to 
recognize  your  face.  Your  features  are  familiar. 
Did  we  ever  meet  on  earth?"  "'Why,  yes,"  the 
former  made  reply,  "I  was  your  washerwoman." 

"  O  Jesus,  ever  with  us  stay; 

Make  all  our  moments  calm  and  bright; 
Chase  the  dark  night  of  sin  away; 
Shed  o'9r  the  world  Thy  holy  light." 


•*DROP  THY  STILL  DEWS  OF 
QUIETNESS  " 

**And  as  Jesus  was  going  up  to  Jerusalem 
he  took  the  twelve  disciples  apart." 

— Matthew  20 :  17. 

WISH  to  think  with  you  for  a 
moment  about  that  word  apart. 
Matthew  is  very  partial  to  the 
word.  In  the  fourteenth  chap- 
ter and  the  thirteenth  verse  we 
read  that  **When  Jesus  had 
heard  of  the  death  of  John  the  Baptist  he  with- 
drew in  a  boat  to  a  desert  place  apart."  Then 
in  the  twenty-third  verse  we  are  told  that  "He 
went  up  into  the  mountain  apart  to  pray."  The 
story  of  the  transfiguration  in  the  seventeenth 
chapter  is  introduced  in  this  way:  "And  after 
six  days  Jesus  taketh  Peter  and  James  and  John 
up  into  a  high  mountain  apart  and  was  trans- 
figured before  them."  Indeed  all  the  Evan- 
gelists, but  especially  Matthew,  have  a  great 
fondness  for  this  word,  which,  by  the  way,  in  the 
original  is  two  words  and  denotes  separation. 
The  Greek  means  aside,  away  from  the  people, 
the  idea  being  that  of  division.  We  speak  of 
76 


76  **  Songs  in  tbe  miobt" 

taking  a  piece  of  mechanism  apart  as  a  watch  or 
a  weapon;  we  break  it  up  into  its  components. 
An  apartment  is  a  suite  of  rooms  in  a  building 
separated  from  others — the  aim  being  that  of 
privacy. 

Our  Lord  loved  the  people,  but  how  often  we 
read  of  His  going  away  from  them  for  a  brief 
season.  He  tried  every  little  while  to  withdraw 
from  the  crowd.  So  He  went  up,  up  to  get  near 
to  His  Father  and  to  be  alone  with  Him.  He 
was  always  stealing  away  at  evening  to  the  hills. 
Most  of  His  ministry  was  carried  on  in  the  towns 
and  cities  by  the  seashore,  but  He  loved  the  hills 
the  best,  and  oftentimes  when  night  fell  He 
would  plunge  into  their  peaceful  depths.  And  I 
cannot  help  feeling  that  what  the  Church  of  God 
needs  to-day,  more  almost  than  anything  else,  is 
that  she  should  go  apart  with  her  Lord  and  sit 
more  at  His  feet  in  the  sacred  privacy  of  His 
blessed  presence. 

For  consider  first  of  all  the  secrecy  of  true  re- 
ligion. Religion  is  preeminently  a  personal 
matter ;  it  is  a  strictly  confidential  agreement ;  it 
is  a  sacred  contract  between  the  soul  and  its  God. 
There  is  something  about  the  religious  life  that 
was  never  intended  for  the  vulgar  gaze.  True 
religion  is  practising  God's  presence,  and  in 
order  to  do  this  one  surely  needs  some  little 
chapel  of  retirement.  **Come,"  says  the  Master, 
"Come  ye  apart  into  a  desert  place,"  and  He  did 


**  still  2)ews  ot  (auietness"       77 

not  mean  by  that,  one  commentator  suggests,  a 
vast  waterless,  treeless,  grassless,  tlowerless 
waste,  but  rather  a  place  deserted  by  the  people, 
a  place  of  tranquil  and  undisturbed  and  intimate 
communion. 

We  all  know  there  is  a  strange  strength  that 
is  conceived  in  solitude.  The  noblest  creatures 
of  the  field  and  the  air  are  not  gregarious. 
Crows  go  in  flocks  and  wolves  in  packs,  but  the 
lion  and  the  eagle  are  solitaires.  And  so  like- 
wise man.  Instance  Copernicus  pondering  his 
great  work  for  three  and  thirty  years.  Or 
Newton  holding  the  idea  of  gravitation  before 
his  mind  for  nearly  twenty  years.  There  was 
no  hurry,  no  haste,  no  forcing;  just  a  slow 
maturing  of  power.  John  the  Baptist  was  a 
child  of  the  wilderness.  So  was  Moses  and 
Daniel  and  Jeremiah.  So  Dante  and  Darwin 
and  our  own  Hawthorne.  The  foremost  prophets 
of  the  world  learned  their  greatest  lessons  in 
solitude.  It  was  said  of  Harriet  Martineau  that 
she  often  took  an  hour  to  read  a  single  page. 
"Wordsworth  is  the  supreme  poet  of  nature. 
What  a  sense  of  apartness  there  is  in  all  his 
Avorks.  He  loved  to  be  alone  with  the  rocks  and 
the  waterfalls.  How  fond  he  was  of  lingering 
in  unfrequented,  out-of-the-way  places.  A  single 
flower,  a  lonely  star,  a  secluded  dell  always  drew 
him.  What  a  charm  there  is  in  these  lines  be- 
ginning: 


78  *♦  Songs  in  tbe  migbt*' 

"  I  wandered  lonely  as  a  cloud 
That  floats  on  high  o'er  vale  and  hill." 

Or  in  that  matchless  lyric : 

"  A  violet  by  a  mossy  stone 
Half  hidden  from  the  eye 
Fair  as  a  star  when  only  one 
Is  shininpr  in  the  sky." 

Now  when  we  study  the  history  of  the  Church 
we  find  a  great  deal  said  in  it  about  a  certain 
class  of  people  called  the  saints.  They  were  men 
and  women  who  seemed  to  have  a  genius  for  the 
unseen.  They  had  a  strange  passion  for  seclu- 
sion. They  loved  to  go  apart.  They  were  a 
company  of  God's  Elect  children  who  pilgrimed 
on  the  heights — St.  Francis,  Loyola,  St.  Teresa, 
Thomas  a  Kempis,  John  Woolman,  Fenelon, 
Rutherford,  McCheyne,  Brainerd,  and  a  long 
glorious  chosen  band  on  whom  the  Spirit  came. 
What  a  shining  group  they  are  as  they  walk  the 
great  white  lonely  way.  And  the  particular 
point  just  now  that  impresses  one  is  that  they 
all  loved  the  secret  place.  **They  climbed  the 
steep  ascent  of  heaven  through  peril,  toil  and 
pain."  They  lived,  as  the  Psalmist  puts  it,  **In 
the  shadow  of  the  Almighty."  They  sang  songs 
in  the  night. 

Take  the  case  of  a  man  like  George  Herbert. 
He  lived  only  forty  years.    He  did  not  enter  the 


**  Sttll  H)ews  ot  (Sluf etness  *♦        79 

ministry  till  he  was  thirty-seven,  and  these  three 
brief  years  he  spent  as  a  country  parson  in  a 
quiet  little  village  remote  from  the  courts  and 
the  crowd,  obscure  and  unknown.  He  was  a  gifted 
musician.  He  composed  many  hymns  which  he 
set  and  sung  to  his  own  lute,  but  the  man  had 
a  burning  passion  for  retirement.  And  one  of 
the  strangest  things  about  his  short  career  is  that 
not  a  single  poem  of  his  appeared  until  after  his 
death.  It  was  during  his  last  hours  that  he 
handed  to  a  friend  the  volume  that  is  now  im- 
mortal, saying  as  he  did  so,  "You  will  find  in 
these  pages  a  picture  of  the  many  spiritual  con- 
flicts that  have  passed  between  God  and  my 
soul,  in  whose  service  I  have  found  perfect  free- 
dom. ' '  To-day  these  poems  are  religious  classics. 
They  are  among  the  treasures  of  our  literature 
and  the  author  is  remembered  as  a  saint.  We 
call  him  "holy  George  Herbert." 

We  are  living  in  a  very  wonderful  age.  It  is 
an  age  of  drive  and  hurry  and  stress  and  storm. 
One  would  not  go  far  afield  to-day  in  describing 
our  age  as  an  age  of  impatience  and  unrest. 
The  tragic  fact  in  the  life  of  the  American  peo- 
ple at  the  present  time  is  the  absence  of  apart- 
ness or  repose.  We  are  in  too  great  a  rush  for 
repose.  We  believe  in  "drives."  We  have 
little  or  no  time  for  the  inner  chamber.  We  pre- 
fer the  limelight  and  the  crowds.  Nothing  ap- 
peals to  us  but  the  strenuous  and  the  thrilling. 


80  "Songs  In  tbe  migbt" 

Repose  is  too  tame  a  thing  entirely  for  this  aero- 
plane age. 

And  the  sad  part  of  it  is  that  this  temper  has 
crept  into  the  Church.  The  Church  is  imitating 
the  world.  Christians  are  regulating  their  devo- 
tions by  the  clock.  Their  hands  are  so  full  that 
their  hearts  are  empty.  I  hope  I  do  not  offend 
you  when  I  charge  that  meditation  is  a  word 
most  of  us  know  precious  little  about.  What  do 
you  busy  men  know  about  meditation  ?  You  rise 
in  the  morning  and  it  is  hurry  and  sweat  and 
fume  and  tear,  until  all  frayed  and  fagged  you 
come  home  in  the  evening.  How  many  are  living 
as  if  life  were  a  railroad  journey  and  the  object 
to  get  to  the  end  of  it  as  quickly  as  possible. 
There  are  Christians  in  all  our  churches  who  are 
so  busy  rushing  hither  and  thither,  on  errands  of 
mercy  it  may  be,  that  they  are  never  alone  with 
God.  I  believe  they  are  missing  the  great  thing 
after  all,  the  thing  that  really  matters.  Some  peo- 
ple are  so  full  of  energy  that  they  are  draining 
and  exhausting  the  supply.  And  if  the  supply 
gives  out  what  then?  What  is  a  man  good  for 
when  the  reservoir  is  empty?  Ruskin  tells  of  a 
genius  who  carved  a  beautiful  figure  in  the  snow 
and  the  way  he  describes  it  is,  "Genius  engaged 
in  the  service  of  annihilation."  I  strongly  fear 
that  far  too  much  of  our  work  is  like  that. 

We  Protestants  are  very  severe  on  Monasti- 
cism,  but  my  own  feeling  is  that  we  are  in  grave 


** still  H)ew8  of  (Quietness**       &t 

danger  of  drifting  into  a  whirlpool  that  is  far 
more  perilous  than  any  cloister  ever  was.  I  am 
not  afraid  of  the  cloister.  I  would  not  mind  a 
bit  being  a  monk.  Oh,  for  the  lost  art  of  medita- 
tion! Oh,  for  the  culture  of  the  secret  place! 
Oh,  for  the  tonic  of  waiting  upon  God!  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  says,  *'I  have  a  tender  plant 
growing  in  the  corner  of  my  heart  that  needs  to 
be  watered  at  least  once  a  week,  and  that  tender 
plant  is  called  'reverence.'  "  I  think  it  is 
Lamartine  who  in  one  of  his  books  speaks  of  a 
secluded  walk  in  the  garden  where  his  mother 
always  spent  a  certain  hour  of  the  day,  upon 
which  nobody  ever  dreamed  for  a  moment  of 
intruding.  It  was  the  holy  garden  of  the  Lord 
to  her.  Poor  souls  that  have  no  such  Beulah 
land !  *  *  When  thou  prayest  enter  into  thy  closet 
and  having  shut  the  door  pray  to  thy  Father 
who  is  in  secret  and  thy  Father  which  seeth  in 
secret  shall  reward  thee  openly."  Seek  the 
private  oratory,  Jesus  says.  It  is  in  solitude  that 
we  catch  the  mystic  notes  that  issue  from  the  soul 
of  things.  It  is  deep  down  in  the  depths  that 
religion  works.  By  going  apart  one  gets  a 
bird's-eye  view  of  the  field;  we  see  things  as  a 
whole,  we  get  a  vision  of  the  picture  in  its  true 
perspective,  but  better  still  we  get  a  vision  of 
God.  How  vast  the  soul  becomes  when  in  the 
presence  of  the  Infinite.  Do  you  recall  Matthew 
Arnold's  lines  as  he  addresses  the  stars: 


82  **  Songs  in  the  migbt" 

"Ah!  once  more,  I  cried,  ye  stars,  ye  waters. 
On  my  heart  your  mighty  charm  renew; 
Still,  still  let  me,  as  I  gaze  upon  you, 
Feel  ray  soul  becoming  vast  like  you. 

"  From  the  intense  clear  star-sown  vault  of  Heaven, 
Over  the  lit  sea's  unquiet  way. 
In  the  rustling  night-air  came  the  answer! 
Would'st  thou  be  as  these  are?  Live  as  they. 

"  Unaffrighted  by  the  silence  round  them, 
Undistracted  by  the  sights  they  see. 
These  demand  not  that  the  things  without  them 
Yield  them  love,  amusement,  sympathy. 

"  Bounded  by  themselves  and  unregardful 
In  what  state  God's  other  works  may  be. 
In  their  own  tasks  all  their  powers  pouring, 
These  attain  the  mighty  life  you  see. 

"Oh!  air-borne  Voice!  long  since  severely  clear, 
A  cry  like  thine  in  mine  own  heart  I  hear; 
Resolve  to  be  thyself;  and  know  that  he 
Who  finds  himself  loses  his  misery." 

Then  I  want  to  consider  with  you  secondly  the 
quietness  of  true  religion.  John  Boyle  O'Reilly 
says  **The  infinite  always  is  silent,  only  the 
finite  speaks."  When  we  look  out  upon  the 
world  we  are  struck  with  two  kinds  of  forces. 
On  the  one  hand  we  have  the  earthquake,  the 
storm,  the  thunder,  the  dashing  of  the  tide,  the 
shock  of  the  explosion,  the  crash  of  the  avalanche. 
On  yonder  battle-field  the  din  is  deafening,  the 
cannons  roar,  the  rocks  tremble.  These  are  the 
destructive  forces  whose  end  and  aim  is  death. 


**  still  Dews  ot  (Siuietness  "       83 

On  the  other  hand  we  have  the  silent  energy 
of  light,  the  noiseless  pull  of  gravity,  the  strange 
mystery  of  growth  with  no  sound  to  mar  the 
peace  of  its  tireless  activity.  Here  is  an  acorn. 
It  falls  upon  the  ground,  and  takes  root.  Slowly 
it  becomes  a  great  oak,  but  with  never  a  whisper 
to  call  attention  to  its  mighty  expansion.  God 
builds  His  sacred  groves  without  the  clang  of 
any  hammer.  How  noiselessly  the  sun  shines, 
the  harvests  ripen,  the  flowers  bloom.  All  great 
healing  ministries  are  bashful  and  unobtrusive. 
No  ear  has  ever  heard  the  voice  of  spring.  It 
comes  without  a  rustle.  I  recall  my  first  visit 
to  a  factory.  The  roar  was  simply  deafening. 
The  manager  was  trying  to  explain  the  work- 
ings of  the  place  but  I  could  not  hear  a  word. 
Such  is  the  work  of  man,  but  it  is  not  so  with 
the  works  of  God. 

"  What  tho'  in  solemn  stillness  all 
Move  round  this  dark  terrestrial  ball, 
What  tho'  no  real  voice  nor  sound 
Amid  the  radiant  orbs  be  found." 

This  morning  the  sunbeam  tapped  on  your  win- 
dow but  you  did  not  hear  it.  How  soft  and 
silent  the  falling  snow,  yet  it  stalls  the  mightiest 
trains,  it  forms  the  avalanche.  The  aeroplane 
makes  a  deal  of  noise,  but  not  the  stars.  "We 
never  hear  the  machinery  of  the  brain.  "War  is 
a  blustering  sabre-rattling  bully,  but  peace  is  a 
soft  and  gentle  maiden.     Spiritual  force  is  the 


84  *'Sonos  in  tbe  mtebt" 

supreme  force  of  the  world,  and  it  comes  with- 
out a  whisper. 

A  representative  of  the  American  Civic  Asso- 
ciation, speaking  recently  before  an  audience  of 
working  women,  asked  them  what  they  con- 
sidered the  greatest  evil  in  their  crowded  tene- 
ment life.  One  woman  rose  and  said:  "I  speak 
for  every  woman  here;  what  we  cannot  stand 
is  the  noise;  it  never  stops.  We  work  hard  all 
day  and  need  rest  at  night.  You  rich  people  can 
get  away  from  the  noise  during  the  summer  but 
we  cannot.  What  can  your  Civic  Club  do  for 
us?'*  Some  one  has  made  a  list  of  the  needless 
noises  on  our  streets,  with  this  result  that  be- 
tween dawn  and  midnight  there  is  an  unneces- 
sary noise  every  five  minutes.  Between  venders 
and  bells  and  whistles  and  clangs  and  gongs  and 
hurdy  gurdies  our  nights  and  days  are  made 
hideous.  Why  should  those  ten-ton  motor  vans 
and  those  huge  brewery  trucks  be  allowed  to  go 
rumbling  along  our  thoroughfares  at  all  hours 
of  the  night  and  morning?  Why  should  news- 
boys be  tolerated  crying  out  their  extras?  Why 
should  automobiles  with  a  horrible  raucous 
screech  be  permitted  to  shatter  our  nerves  at 
every  corner?  The  International  Congress  of 
Aurists  which  met  in  Boston  a  few  years  ago 
maintained  that  autos  should  carry  a  horn 
emitting  a  musical  note. 

The  tragic  thing,  alas,  in  the  life  of  the  world 


**  still  H)ews  ot  (Siutetness**        85 

to-day  is  the  absence  of  quietness.  One  of  the 
blessings  of  the  old  time  Sabbath  was  its  calm, 
its  restfulness,  its  holy  peace.  But  we  have  lost 
that.  We  have  been  taught  so  much  the  art  of 
being  strenuous  that  we  have  well-nigh  lost  the 
art  of  being  still.  Ours  is  an  age  of  fuss  and 
trumpet  blowing.  We  have  more  faith  in  the 
whirlwind  than  in  the  still  small  voice.  God 
usually  speaks  in  whispers  but  we  cannot  hear 
these  whispers  for  the  clamour  of  the  street. 
We  all  know  that  the  profoundest  feelings  of 
the  soul  have  no  words  to  express  them.  There 
are  times  when  talking  is  almost  irreverent. 
When  we  enter  some  venerable  building  we 
prefer  to  be  hushed  and  still.  In  the  hour  of 
sorrow  the  frivolous  remark  pains  us.  No  true 
man  is  talkative  and  flippant  in  the  hour  of  a 
deep  and  rich  experience.  The  flower  needs  the 
fog  and  the  dew  just  as  much  as  it  needs  the 
shovel  and  the  spade,  and  quietness  is  the  dew  of 
the  soul. 

In  Sir  Walter  Besant's  story,  "All  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men,"  there  is  a  description  of  a 
walk  through  Whitechapel  on  a  Sunday  morn- 
ing: 

"Here,"  he  says,  "was  a  circle  gathered 
round  a  man  who  was  waving  his  arms  and 
shouting ;  he  was  an  Apostle  of  Temperance ; 
behind  him  stood  a  few  of  his  private  friends 
to  act  as  a  claque.    The  listeners  seemed 


86  **Sona0  in  tbe  IRigbt" 

amused  but  not  convinced.  Another  circle 
was  gathered  round  a  man  in  a  cart,  who 
had  a  flaming  red  flag  to  support  him.  He 
belonged,  the  flag  told  the  world,  to  the 
Tower  Hamlets  Magna  Charta,  and  the 
fighting,  knee-drill,  singing,  and  storming  of 
the  enemy's  fort  were  at  their  highest  and 
most  enjoyable  point.  Higher  up,  on  the 
left,  stood  a  rival  in  red-hot  religion,  the 
Hall  of  the  Jubilee  Singers,  where  another 
vast  crowd  was  worshipping,  exhorting  and 
singing. ' ' 

Now  listen  to  the  comment  made  on  this  by  the 
principal  character  of  the  story : 

"There  seems,"  said  Angela,  **to  be  too 
much  exhorting ;  can  they  not  sit  down  some- 
where in  quiet  for  praise  and  prayer  1  ' ' 

And  as  before  the  really  lamentable  fact  about 
it  all  is  that  this  babel  and  clatter  have  crept  into 
the  Church.  We  are  getting  to  be  very  fond  of 
a  religious  activity  that  has  noise  in  it.  We  are 
beginning  to  feel  that  a  profession  that  does  not 
cry  aloud  in  the  streets,  and  does  not  advertise 
in  every  newspaper  in  glaring  head-lines  is  an  in- 
effective thing.  We  have  a  strange  idea  that  noth- 
ing is  being  done  unless  somebody  is  talking. 
So  Christians  fairly  swarm  to  conferences  and 
councils  and  platform  discussions  and  conven- 
tions. The  inquiry  that  is  nearly  always  made 
concerning  a  religious  gathering  is,  "Was  there 
much   of  a  crowd   there?"    We   take   it   for 


**  still  Dews  ot  (Sltttetness"        87 

granted  that  if  the  speaker  was  a  good  talker 
and  the  room  was  crowded,  the  meeting  was  a 
big  success.  I  would  almost  wager  that  the  first 
question  that  will  be  asked  you  this  morning 
when  you  reach  your  home  will  be,  "Was  there 
a  large  congregation  present  ?  "  Do  you  remem- 
ber in  "Pilgrim's  Progress"  the  conversation 
between  Christian  and  Talkative?  "I  thought 
we  should  have  a  great  deal  of  talk  by  this 
time,"  says  Talkative.  The  moments  when  he 
was  pursuing  his  journey  in  silence  seemed 
wasted. 

Surely  there  is  a  fresh  lesson  here  for  us.  So 
many  professing  followers  of  the  Master  are  liv- 
ing in  the  visible  and  the  vocal  that  they  are  for- 
getting that  their  true  real  power  is  out  of 
sight.  To-day  we  have  the  noiseless  gun.  The 
noise  is  eliminated  by  the  use  of  a  muffler ;  it  be- 
ing a  well-known  fact  that  the  noise  which  goes 
with  an  explosion  is  not  produced  by  the  actual 
discharge  but  by  the  sudden  escape  of  the  gas. 
There  is  no  real  power  in  the  noise.  There  is 
never  any  real  power  in  noise.  They  tell 
me  that  the  engine  room  of  a  great  factory  is 
the  quietest  room  in  the  building,  although  it 
sets  all  the  rest  of  the  machinery  in  motion. 
Strength  is  not  in  bluster  and  noise.  Strength 
is  in  quietness.  True  religion  is  deep  rather 
than  demonstrative.  "It  is  the  brook  and  not 
the  river  that  goes  brawling." 


88  ♦'Songs  in  tbe  niQht** 

John  Burrouglis  says  that  the  first  lesson  a 
naturalist  must  learn  is  to  be  quiet.  Let  a  man 
go  shouting  and  laughing  through  the  forest 
and  every  bird  and  beast  will  scurry  away  from 
him.  Silence  is  the  first  door  to  the  temple  of 
nature.  "Be  still  and  know."  John  Foster, 
who  wrote  that  great  essay  on  **  Decision  of 
Character,"  said,  "If  I  had  the  power  of  touch- 
ing mankind  with  a  message  it  would  be  in  two 
words  'Be  Quiet.'  "  Richard  Jeffries  says  that 
men  do  not  know  what  they  miss  because  they 
will  not  be  still.  "The  lake  must  be  calm," 
Brierley  says,  "if  the  heavens  are  to  be  re- 
flected on  its  surface."  You  recall  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing's sonnet  on  the  unchanging  Christ: 

"  Speak  low  to  me,  my  Saviour,  low  and  sweet. 
From  out  the  Hallelujahs,  sweet  and  low, 
lyest  I  should  fear  and  fall  and  miss  Thee  so, 
Who  art  not  missed  by  any  that  entreat." 

Let  us  learn  then  a  lesson  from  our  Master. 
Let  us  learn  the  lesson  of  retirement.  Let  us 
go  apart.  Let  us  go  up  occasionally  to  the 
mountain  where  things  are  peaceful  and  see 
how  life  looks  from  the  top.  "We  are  called  to 
the  heavenly  places.  Large  areas  of  our  life 
ought  to  be  above  the  world.  For  after  air  our 
real  home  is  in  the  heights.  Our  real  power  is 
in  communion,  I  am  pleading  for  more  prayer. 
"Take  time  to  be  holy."    The  great  men  of  ac- 


"Still  S)ew0  ot  (Sluietness**        89 

tion  were  men  great  in  prayer.  Go  off  into  the 
quiet  and  find  out  where  you  stand  with  the  in- 
finite. Climb  the  heights  and  be  alone  for  a 
little  while  with  your  Lord.  How  haggard  and 
hollow  eyed  the  most  of  us  look.  Ah,  friends, 
the  shining  face  comes  from  the  mountain  top 
where  Moses  got  his.  Christianity  is  a  still  small 
voice,  or  as  the  Welsh  translation  has  it,  it  is  "  a 
silent  voice."  That  is,  it  is  a  voice  to  some,  it 
is  silence  to  others.  There  is  a  music  that  no 
one  can  hear  until  the  ears  are  anointed.  The 
voice  of  truth  is  a  very  low  sweet  voice.  I 
would  like  to  thank  Whittier  for  many  things 
but  for  nothing  more  than  his  beautiful  hymn: 

"  Drop  Thy  still  dews  of  quietness, 

Till  all  our  strivings  cease: 
Take  from  our  souls  the  strain  and  stress; 
And  let  our  ordered  lives  confess 

The  beauty  of  Thy  peace. 

"  Breathe  throuprh  the  pulses  of  desire 

Thy  coolness  and  Thy  balm; 
Let  sense  be  dumb,  its  beats  expire: 
Speak  through  the  earthquake,  wind,  and  fire, 

O  still  small  voice  of  calm! " 


VI 


"E'EN  THOUGH  IT  BE  A  CROSS  THAT 
RAISETH  ME** 

*'For  our  light  affliction  which  is  but  for 
a  moment  worketh  for  us  a  far  more  exceed- 
ing and  eternal  weight  of  glory;  while  we 
look  not  at  the  things  which  are  seen  hut 
at  the  things  which  are  unseen;  for  the 
things  which  are  seen  are  temporal,  hut  the 
things  which  are  unseen  are  eternal." 

— 2  Corinthians  4 :  17, 18. 

HIS  passage  is  a  wonderful 
study  in  contrasts.  The  Apostle 
brings  out  the  strength  and 
glory  of  his  faith  by  compar- 
ing it  with  the  things  of  sense 
and  time.  The  law  of  contrast 
is  one  of  nature 's  most  effective  instruments  and 
also  one  of  her  most  popular  ones.  Nothing,  it 
seems,  is  fully  appreciated  until  we  are  con- 
fronted with  its  opposite.  Why  do  we  love  so 
the  first  greenness  of  spring?  It  is  because  the 
memory  of  the  bleak  winter  is  so  fresh  and  vivid. 
The  ease  that  follows  relief  from  pain  in  the 
morning  is  sweet  and  blissful  because  of  the 
excruciating  torture  of  the  night.  Is  it  not  true 
that  most  of  us  do  not  value  our  blessings  until 
90 


"B'en  XTbouQb  ft  35e  a  Cross"    9J 

we  lose  them?  Possession  is  only  seen  clearly 
and  distinctly  in  the  light  of  loss. 

The  law  of  contrast  is  one  of  the  secrets  of  all 
great  art.  It  is  one  of  the  laws  of  beauty.  The 
beauty  of  the  blue  sky  is  enhanced  by  the  white 
clouds  that  float  across  its  face.  The  starry 
points  sparkle  and  glitter  on  the  great  black 
dome  of  night.  How  beautiful  the  white  daisies 
in  the  green  clover  field!  Rembrandt  was 
a  firm  believer  in  the  power  of  contrast.  When 
he  paints  a  face  he  throws  a  strong  ray  of  light 
upon  the  features  but  the  background  is  always 
shadowy.  Henry  Drummond  in  one  of  his  books 
has  a  criticism  of  the  paintings  of  Sir  Noel 
Paton,  and  his  criticism  is  this,  that  part  of  their 
peculiar  beauty  lies  by  a  trick  of  art  in  their 
partial  ugliness.  There  are  flowers  and  birds 
and  knights  and  ladies  thrown  upon  the  can- 
vas, but  down  in  the  corner  or  somewhere  in  the 
background  there  is  nearly  always  some  uncouth 
and  loathsome  form — a  toad  or  lizard  or  snail  to 
lend  by  contrast  a  lovelier  beauty  to  the  rest. 
Just  as  in  architecture  you  often  see  the  griffin 
or  the  gargoyle  keeping  company  with  the  faces 
of  cherubs  on  the  front  of  the  cathedral. 

Carry  this  thought  over  into  the  realm  of 
literature.  Do  you  recall  how  Robert  Browning, 
describing  the  morning  of  the  Day  of  Judgment, 
has  a  lark  singing?  And  do  you  remember  how 
the  poet  Coleridge  in  his  **Rime  of  the  Ancient 


92  "Sonas  in  tbe  IRiabt** 

Mariner"  has  a  grewsome  account  of  the  corpses 
on  shipboard  and  the  sea  rolling  in  corruption 
and  blood  and  then  goes  on  to  say : 

"It  ceased:  yet  still  the  sails  made  on 

A  pleasant  noise  till  noon, 
A  noise  like  of  a  hidden  brook 

In  the  leafy  month  of  June, 
That  to  the  sleeping  woods  all  night 

Singeth  a  quiet  tune." 

There  is  a  story  of  Mrs.  Charles  Kingsley  who 
long  survived  her  husband.  Never  perhaps  had 
two  souls  been  united  in  a  closer  bond  of  chiv- 
alry and  devotion.  "Whenever  I  find  myself 
thinking  too  much  about  Charles,"  she  said  in 
the  days  of  her  grief,  **I  find  and  read  the  most 
sensational  novel  I  can.  People  may  think  it 
heartless,  but  hearts  were  given  us  to  love  with, 
not  to  break. ' ' 

Now  this  law  of  contrasts  is  brought  out  very 
sharply  in  this  great  wonderful  passage  before 
us.  There  is  first  of  all  a  contrast  of  conditions ; 
it  is  on  the  one  hand  a  state  of  affliction,  on  the 
other  hand  a  state  of  glory;  then  the  affliction 
is  a  light  one  over  against  a  preponderating 
weight  of  glory.  Furthermore,  the  one  is  as  it 
were  momentary,  the  other  is  abiding;  while  to 
sum  up  the  Apostle's  thought  in  a  word,  and  in  a 
sense  to  explain  and  interpret  it,  it  is  a  contrast 
of  the  reality  of  the  facts  themselves,  the  one 
set  of  facts  being  outward,  the  other  inward; 


**i6'en  Ubouob  flt  3Be  a  Cross**    93 

the  one  set  being  seen,  the  other  unseen;  the 
one  being  temporal,  the  other  eternal.  What 
the  Apostle  really  is  doing  is,  he  is  weighing 
time  over  against  eternity.  In  this  way  he 
touches  the  giddy  point  of  the  climax. 

I.  Consider  then  the  first  contrast,  our  afflic- 
tions. If  our  life  is  to  be  conformed  to  the  life 
of  Christ  it  must  be  a  life  familiar  with  afflic- 
tion. We  cannot  escape  that.  We  must  expect 
to  bear  about  in  our  body  the  dying  of  the  Lord 
Jesus.  The  whole  tenor  of  the  chapter  is  to 
teach  us  that  we  must  never  allow  ourselves  to 
become  despondent  or  rebellious  or  faint-hearted 
if  we  are  called  to  pass  tlirough  the  fires  of  suf- 
fering, because  suffering  has  a  purpose.  Even 
fire  has  a  remedial  value  if  we  use  it  as  a  sacra- 
ment. It  is  through  fire  that  the  unclean  is 
cleansed  and  the  steel  is  tempered.  **We  are 
troubled  on  every  side,"  the  Apostle  says,  "but 
not  distressed,  perplexed,  but  not  in  despair, 
cast  down  but  not  destroyed.  .  .  .  Knowing 
that  he  which  raised  up  the  Lord  Jesus  shall 
raise  us  up  also  by  Jesus,  and  shall  present  us 
with  you."  We  are  bidden  to  hold  firmly  in 
mind  the  essential  connection  there  is  between 
the  sufferings  of  time  and  the  glories  of  eternity. 
The  one  condition  is  working  out  the  other. 
The  sufferings  are  outward  but  the  glory  is  in- 
ward. God  turns  the  seeming  curse  into  a 
blessing,  and  when  we  stand  before  the  throne 


94  ''Sonas  tn  tbe  IRIgbt" 

it  is  quite  possible  there  is  nothing  we  will  thauk 
Him  for  more  than  the  discipline  of  trial. 

I  like  the  way  Weymouth  translates  the  verse, 
"For  this  our  light  and  transitory  burden  of 
suffering  is  achieving  for  us  a  weight  of  glory." 
"Is  achieving  for  us"  mark.  I  prefer  that  way 
of  putting  it.  "Is  achieving  for  us."  The 
question  is  repeatedly  asked — Why  is  the  life 
of  man  drenched  with  so  much  blood,  and 
blistered  with  so  many  tears?  The  answer  is 
to  be  found  in  that  word  "achieving";  these 
things  are  achieving  for  us  something  precious. 
They  are  teaching  us  not  only  the  way  to  victory, 
but  better  still  the  laws  of  victory.  God  allows 
His  children  a  certain  measure  of  self-govern- 
ment. Just  as  in  the  George  Junior  Republic 
the  boys  are  permitted  under  wise  oversight  to 
make  their  own  laws  and  rule  themselves  to  a 
certain  extent,  so  in  the  work  of  the  Kingdom 
we  have  been  given  dominion  over  a  certain 
province  of  the  soul  realm.  You  have  seen  wells, 
have  you  not,  in  which  one  bucket  going  down 
lifts  another  bucket  up.  And  that  is  the  way 
with  sorrow.  Sorrow  so  adjusts  the  pulleys 
that  like  the  birds'  wings  its  very  weight  becomes 
a  lift.  So  we  are  to  count  all  things  but  loss 
if  we  may  but  know  the  fellowship  of  Christ's 
sufferings  and  are  made  conformable  unto  His 
death,  inasmuch  as  the  promise  is  that  "the  suf- 
ferings of  this  present  time"  are  not  only  not 


**iB*cn  ZbowQb  n  Be  a  Cross**    95 

worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory  which 
shall  be  revealed  hereafter,  but  what  is  infinitely 
better  they  are  helping  to  achieve  that  glory. 

Surely  indeed  this  is  a  wonderfully  comforting 
thought  to  those  who  are  down  in  the  depths. 
There  is  a  compensation  in  every  sorrow,  and 
the  sorrow  is  working  out  the  compensation.  It 
is  the  cry  of  that  dear  old  hymn : 

"  Nearer  my  God  to  Thee,  nearer  to  Thee 
E'en  tho'  it  be  a  cross  that  raiseth  me." 

I  have  a  bird  in  my  home  and  you  ought 
to  hear  the  little  fellow  sing.  He  is  called  a 
"Roller."  He  sings  as  if  his  throat  would 
burst.  He  sings  out  of  sheer  unselfish  ecstasy. 
He  sings  as  if  he  were  in  love.  He  sings  as  if 
he  felt.  And  remember  he  is  caged.  Joy  some- 
times needs  pain  to  give  it  birth.  Fanny  Crosby 
could  never  have  written  her  beautiful  hymn 
"I  shall  see  Him  face  to  face"  were  it  not  for 
the  fact  that  she  had  never  looked  upon  the  green 
fields  nor  the  evening  sunset  nor  the  kindly 
twinkle  in  her  mother's  eye.  It  was  the  loss  of 
her  own  vision  that  helped  her  to  gain  her  re- 
markable spiritual  discernment.  It  is  the  tree 
that  suffers  that  is  capable  of  polish.  When  the 
woodman  wants  some  curved  lines  of  beauty  in 
the  grain  he  cuts  down  some  maple  that  has  been 
gashed  by  the  axe  and  twisted  by  the  storm  and 
tapped  for  the  syrup.    In  this  way  he  secures 


96  •*SonQS  In  tbe  laifibt" 

the  knots  and  the  hardness  that  take  the  gloss. 
Some  one  has  said  that  out  of  David  Living- 
stone's own  arteries  went  the  red  blood  whicli 
to-day  is  helping  to  redeem  Africa.  Listen  to 
these  words  from  a  soldier :  "I  do  not  think  my 
life  could  be  used  to  better  advantage  than  as 
part  of  the  price  which  we  are  paying  for  the 
world's  freedom  in  future  years.  I  instinctively 
look  forward  to  many  years  of  happiness  and  I 
trust  usefulness  in  the  work  of  the  Church  when 
this  war  is  over,  but  our  lives  are  in  God's  hands 
and  I  feel  sure  that  He  will  use  mine  to  the  best 
advantage.  I  know  that  out  of  the  Valley  of 
Baca  an  all  wise  Father  is  making  a  garden ! ' ' 

II.  Then  our  afflictions  are  light,  the  glory 
is  heavy.  "Worketh  for  us  more  and  more  ex- 
ceedingly a  weight  of  glory : ' '  Nay  stronger  than 
that,  * '  a  preponderating  weight  of  glory. ' '  That 
is  to  say  the  affliction  is  a  light  trifling  matter  in 
comparison  with  the  glory.  The  troubles  of 
this  life  He  uses  as  a  foil  to  set  forth  the  sur- 
passing splendours  of  the  other.  The  whole  pas- 
sage denotes  that  the  glory  to  come  exceeds  the 
power  of  words  to  describe.  *  *  Eye  hath  not  seen, 
ear  hath  not  heard,  neither  hath  it  entered  into 
the  heart  of  man  to  conceive  the  things  which 
God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love  him."  I 
have  heard  it  said  that  we  stand  heavy  trials 
more  easily  than  we  do  light  ones.  If  this  is 
true,  and  I  rather  think  it  is,  I  suppose  one 


**B*eu  ZboixQh  tt  ISC  a  cross"    97 

reason  is  that  we  try  to  carry  our  little  loads 
ourselves,  but  when  some  really  staggering 
weight  is  laid  upon  us,  we  feel  our  absolute  in- 
sufficiency and  so  it  drives  us  to  a  higher  power. 
Thus  it  is  that  God  comes  to  our  rescue  and 
makes  the  burden  bearable.  But  perhaps  a  more 
likely  reason  would  be  that  when  the  heavy  cross 
comes  we  turn  our  eyes  to  the  heavenly  country, 
we  set  our  affections  more  on  things  above,  and 
the  cry  of  our  hearts  is: 

"  O  Paradise,  O  Paradise 
Who  doth  not  crave  for  rest." 

As  Donald  Hankey  says:  "I  have  seen  with 
the  eyes  of  God.  I  have  seen  the  vanity  of  the 
temporal  and  the  glory  of  the  eternal.  I  have 
despised  comfort  and  honoured  pain.  I  have 
understood  the  victory  of  the  cross.  0  death, 
where  is  thy  sting  ?  If  we  are  to  do  our  part  in 
this  glorious  work  it  is  absolutely  essential  for 
us  to  understand  the  victory  of  the  cross  through 
the  experience  of  its  dynamic  in  our  lives.  This 
alone  will  give  us  strength,  staying  power, 
courage  and  devotion  to  persevere  in  the  work  of 
preparing  the  world  for  the  return  of  its  right- 
ful king." 

III.  Still  further  the  affliction  is  momentary, 
the  glory  is  abiding.  The  one  ends  with  death 
at  the  latest,  the  other  has  no  end.  How  can 
we  know  the  meaning  of  God's  dealings  with  us 


98  ♦*Sonos  in  tbe  'ViiQbt** 

if  we  judge  them  from  the  level  of  time  and  He 
deals  with  us  from  the  plane  of  eternity?  If 
we  are  to  look  at  our  afflictions  in  the  right  light 
and  bear  them  in  the  right  spirit  we  must  see 
them  in  the  right  connection,  not  with  that  which 
passes  but  with  that  which  remains.  We  say  I 
do  not  know  what  these  troubles  of  mine  mean ! 
I  see  neither  their  wisdom  nor  their  justice  nor 
their  love.  But  He  says  to  us,  "What  I  do 
thou  knowest  not  now,  but  thou  shalt  know  here- 
after." 

One  of  the  earliest  stories  of  our  race  comes 
down  to  us  from  our  Saxon  fathers.  They  were 
discussing  whether  they  would  listen  to  the  mis- 
sionary or  not ;  one  chief  said,  '  *  A  bird  flies  into 
the  tent  on  one  side  and  then  flies  out  on  the 
other,  and  so  the  spirit  of  man  comes  in  and  goes 
out.  If  this  missionary  can  tell  us  where  it 
comes  from  and  where  it  goes  to,  for  God's  sake 
let  us  listen  to  him. ' '  There  is  a  precious  lesson 
in  that  old  familiar  story.  And  the  lesson  is 
especially  comforting  in  time  of  sorrow.  Sor- 
row tarries  only  for  the  night;  it  takes  its 
leave  in  the  morning.  A  thunder-storm  is  very 
brief  when  put  alongside  the  long  summer  day. 
"His  anger  is  but  for  a  moment;  his  favour  is 
for  a  lifetime.  Weeping  may  endure  for  the 
night  but  joy  cometh  in  the  morning." 

IV.  Then  finally  the  things  seen  and  the 
things  unseen.    The  Apostle 's  idea  is  not  that  we 


**jB'cn  Ubougb  irt  J5e  a  Cross**    99 

are  to  ignore  the  former  in  order  to  see  the  latter. 
He  does  not  mean  that  we  are  to  push  the  world 
entirely  out  of  sight.  Paul  never  closed  his  eyes 
on  what  was  round  about  him.  This  clause  like 
the  others  is  relative,  not  absolute.  We  are  not 
to  fasten  our  gaze  upon  the  things  that  are  seen 
as  the  end  and  aim  of  our  existence.  They  are 
meant  to  be  subservient.  He  means  rather  that 
we  are  to  see  the  invisible  through  the  visible. 
The  temporal  things  around  us  are  simply  win- 
dows through  which  we  are  to  look  out  upon  the 
eternal. 

And  is  not  that  their  divine  purpose?  Is  not 
everything  we  touch  and  taste  and  see  and  handle 
a  thought  of  God,  "a  premeditation  of  God"  as 
Agassiz  once  expressed  it  ?  These  outward  things 
are  the  expression  of  God  just, as  a  book  is  the 
expression  of  its  author.  The  reason  why  men 
become  worldly  is  not  because  they  look  at  the 
world  but  because  they  do  not  look  deeply  enough 
or  diligently  enough  or  devoutly  enough  or 
penetratingly  enough  to  see  the  permanent  be- 
hind the  fleeting.  The  spiritually-minded  man 
is  the  man  who  spiritualizes  the  things  of  time  by 
seeing  them  in  their  relation  to  eternity. 

There  is  an  old  saying  that  things  are  not  what 
they  seem ;  that  is  to  say  our  faculties  are  not  in- 
fallible. The  testimony  they  give  is  not  always 
dependable  on  its  face  value.  The  world  is 
packed  full  of  illusion.     The  earth  looks  as  if  it 


xoo         ^  Songs  in  tbe  IRigbt'' 

were  flat  but  we  know  it  is  not.  The  sun  looks 
as  though  it  rises  and  sets,  but  we  know  it  does 
not.  We  say  that  seeing  is  believing,  but  when 
we  say  that  we  forget  the  curious  tricks  our 
senses  play.  Scientists  speak  of  the  phenomena 
of  nature,  but  phenomena  is  a  Greek  word  and 
simply  means  appearance.  The  appearance  of 
things  is  not  the  reality ;  the  reality  is  infinitely 
more  wonderful  than  the  appearance.  To  the 
eye  the  firmament  is  studded  with  fixed  points 
of  light  but  to  the  soul  these  points  are  celestial 
worlds  sweeping  by  at  a  breathless  velocity. 
You  have  never  seen  God,  you  say,  but  then,  my 
friend,  have  you  ever  seen  any  of  the  really  great 
things  about  you?  Have  you  ever  seen  any  of 
the  cosmic  forces?  Have  you  ever  seen  a  single 
motive  that  impels  you?  Have  you  ever  seen 
love  or  hate  or  joy  or  peace  or  patience?  Have 
you  ever  seen  music?  A  visible  God  would  not 
be  our  God.  A  visible  God  would  have  limita- 
tions. God  to  be  God  must  be  invisible.  No 
man  can  see  thought  but  thought  can  be  clothed 
in  speech.  No  man  can  see  truth  but  truth  can 
be  communicated.  The  seeming  is  not  the  real. 
The  real  is  the  intangible,  the  eternal,  the 
spiritual. 

It  is  possible  to  walk  through  a  great  gallery 
of  the  Masters  and  see  nothing  but  patches  of 
colour  and  an  array  of  frames,  calculate  on  their 
market  value  and  so  reduce  the  whole  collection 


**jB*cn  TLbowQb  U  3BC  a  Cross*'  lOJ 

to  a  valuable  hobby  that  some  rich  man  might 
want  to  possess.  Or  it  is  possible  to  walk  through 
steeped  in  wonder  and  admiration  and  delight, 
trying  all  the  while  to  interpret  the  idea  that  was 
in  the  soul  of  the  artist.  We  can  have  the  matter 
view  or  the  mind  view  of  things.  It  is  possible 
to  look  at  a  great  landscape  as  some  animal 
might — a  horse  or  a  dog.  But  it  is  possible  to 
look  upon  it  as  the  poet  does,  with  fires  of  truth 
and  feeling  and  imagination  kindling  in  his 
soul. 

Oh,  it  is  a  wonderful  thing  to  see  the  invisible. 
Moses  saw  the  invisible  and  he  endured.  Luther 
saw  the  invisible  and  out  of  the  vision  came  the 
reformation.  David  Livingstone  saw  the  in- 
visible and  because  of  that  fact  Africa  to-day  is 
circumscribed  with  light.  It  is  a  great  thing 
to  have  eyes  in  the  body  but  it  is  a  far  greater 
thing  to  have  eyes  in  the  soul.  It  is  a  glorious 
thing  to  be  able  to  pierce  through  the  crust  of 
things  and  get  down  to  inner  values.  Glorious 
because  only  then  do  we  see  the  glory.  Some- 
times we  hear  people  talk  of  religion  declining, 
but  we  do  not  need  to  worry  about  that.  True 
religion  can  never  decline.  The  thing  is  not  pos- 
sible. It  can  never  decline  because  it  deals  with 
the  unseen  and  it  is  impossible  to  eliminate  the 
unseen  from  life.  Every  day  we  are  doing  busi- 
ness with  the  unseen,  and  after  all  that  is  what 
religion  is.    What  is  religion  but  the  interpreta- 


102         "Sottas  in  tbe  nigbf 

tion  of  the  unseen  ?  * '  Now  faith  is  the  substance 
of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not 
seen." 

This  is  why  childhood  is  such  a  splendid  para- 
ble of  the  Kingdom.  The  child  is  fundamentally 
religious.  Its  young  eyes  look  out  upon  the 
world  and  they  see  the  soul  of  the  world.  They 
see  images  of  wonder  and  glory.  They  see  faces 
that  look  out,  as  it  were,  from  God.  But  as  age 
advances  this  freshness  of  insight  grows  dim. 
The  eternal  things  become  hazy  and  hidden. 
"They  fade  into  the  light  of  common  day,"  as 
Wordsworth  puts  it.  The  divine  touch  no  longer 
appeals  to  us  older  people  until  our  eyes  are 
anointed  and  we  receive  again  the  spirit  of  a 
little  child.  Then  all  things  become  new.  This 
is  the  truth  that  Dr.  Peabody  so  beautifully  ex« 
presses  in  his  comforting  lines : 

"  My  darling  boy,  so  early  snatched  away 
From  arms  still  seeking  thee  in  empty  air, 
That  thou  shouldst  come  to  me  I  do  not  pray, 
Lest,  by  thy  coming,  heaven  should  be  less  fair. 

"  Stay,  rather,  in  perennial  flower  of  youth, 
Such  as  the  Master,  looking  on,  must  love; 
And  send  to  me  the  Spirit  of  the  truth, 
To  teach  me  of  the  wisdom  from  above. 

"  Beckon  to  guide  my  thoughts,  as  stumblingly 
They  seek  the  kingdom  of  the  undefiled; 
And  meet  me  at  its  gateway  with  thy  key. 
The  unstained  spirit  of  a  little  child." 


**B'en  Uboiigb  Ht  3Be  a  Cross"  J03 

I  have  recently  been  reading  the  lives  of  two 
great  contemporaries — Benvenuto  Cellini  and 
Michael  Angelo.  They  were  boih  great  artists 
and  great  scholars.  When  you  read  the  life  of 
the  former  you  are  struck  with  the  entire  absence 
of  anything  beyond  the  visible,  but  when  you 
read  the  latter  you  are  impressed  with  the  fact 
that  the  passion  of  the  man  was  to  express  in  a 
visible  form  the  beauty  which  his  soul  saw.  In 
the  words  of  his  own  sonnet : 

"Heaven  born,  the  soul  a  heavenward  course  must 
hold, 
Beyond  the  visible  world  she  soars  to  seek; 
For  what  delights  the  sense  is  false  and  weak." 

Let  us  then  cultivate  the  long  look.  As  the 
writer  to  the  Hebrews  puts  it:  "Looking  away 
unto  Jesus."  Follow  everything  to  its  close  and 
see  how  it  will  look  from  the  last  observation 
point  and  in  the  light  of  the  glory-land.  We 
identify  the  real  with  the  visible  and  tangible. 
We  crown  the  material  king.  "Solid  as  the 
rock, ' '  we  say ;  *  *  strong  as  the  bank. ' '  But  then 
the  question  arises,  how  solid  is  the  rock,  how 
strong  is  the  bank?  And  the  simple  truth  is  the 
rock  is  no  more  solid,  so  far  as  lasting  perma- 
nence is  concerned,  than  the  waves  that  lash  its 
granite  base.  And  the  bank — ^why,  it  is  just  as 
strong  as,  and  not  one  whit  stronger  than,  the 
faith  of  the  community  it  endeavours  to  serve. 


J04  ''Songs  in  tbe  •Htgbt" 

We  must  beware  of  putting  in  the  background 
everything  that  is  not  obvious  to  sense.  It  is 
the  intangible,  the  insensible,  that  is  the  real. 
The  spiritual  life  is  the  life  that  rests  on  reality. 
It  concerns  itself  with  what  a  thing  is,  not  how 
it  looks.  Its  estimates  are  based  on  intrinsic 
merit,  not  on  any  face  value.  It  pierces  the  thin 
veil  of  illusion  and  lays  hold  of  the  permanent, 
which  is  God. 

Have  you  ever  seen  that  remarkable  portrait 
of  George  Washington  ?  In  the  right  perspective 
his  face  is  clearly  seen,  but  as  you  draw  nearer 
you  begin  to  realize  that  it  is  an  illusion.  For 
the  face  gradually  disappears,  and  instead,  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  looms  into  view. 
Some  expert  penman  had  engraved  the  great  im- 
mortal document  into  the  picture.  And  just  so 
is  it  with  the  light  of  faith. 

"  Faith  lends  its  realizing  light, 

The  clouds  disperse,  the  shadows  fly, 
The  invisible  appears  in  sight. 
And  God  is  seen  by  mortal  eye." 

One  of  the  most  distinguished  writers  of  New 
England  used  to  love  to  go  out  to  Mt.  Auburn 
and  write  descriptions  of  its  monuments.  He 
would  describe  its  rock  tombs,  its  Doric  temples, 
its  Grecian  mouldings.  Then  the  young  man 
married  a  wife.  The  ceremony  took  place  in  the 
morning,  and  in  the  afternoon  her  wedding  gown 


**iB*cn  Ubouab  irt  Be  a  Cross''  J05 

took  fire  and  she  was  burned  to  death.  They  took 
her  body  out  and  laid  it  in  Mt.  Auoum  and  every 
little  while  he  would  tenderly  visit  the  sacred 
spot.  But  now  it  was  not  the  architecture  he 
noticed ;  it  was  not  the  sculptured  pillars  or  the 
Grecian  cameos.  The  world  looks  so  entirely 
different  when  it  is  dark.  It  takes  the  night 
time  to  see  the  stars.  It  is  one  of  the  laws  of 
celestial  optics  that  it  takes  the  dark  valley  to 
show  us  more  clearly  the  path  of  life.  When 
our  earthly  lamp  is  extinguished  then  the  Sun  of 
Righteousness  arises  with  healing  in  His  wings, 
then  our  spirits  seem  nearer  to  God, 

"  The  Sun  that  glads  mine  eyes, 
Is  Christ  the  Lord  I  love: 
I  sing  for  joy  of  that  which  lies 
Stored  up  for  us  above." 


VII 


**  TOWERING  O'ER  THE  WRECKS 
OF  TIME" 

'And  I,  if  I  he  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  mill 
draw  all  men  unto  me." — John  12:  32. 

N  the  Gospel  of  John  we  meet 
this  expression  three  times.  In 
the  third  chapter  we  read  that 
as  "Moses  lifted  up  the  serpent 
in  the  wilderness  even  so  must 
the  Son  of  man  be  lifted  up." 
In  the  eighth  chapter  and  the  twenty-eighth 
verse  we  read,  '  *  When  ye  have  lifted  up  the  Son 
of  man  then  shall  ye  know  that  I  am  he  and  that 
I  do  nothing  of  myself."  And  in  this  passage 
we  are  told  "I,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth, 
will  draw  all  men  unto  me,"  to  which  John  adds, 
**This  he  said  signifying  what  death  he  should 
die."  So  beyond  all  doubt  the  reference  each 
time  is  to  His  crucifixion  on  the  cross.  It  is  an- 
other triumphant  song  in  the  night. 

It  will  be  observed  of  course  that  the  words 
have  a  double  meaning.  They  are  true  literally 
and  they  are  true  spiritually.  He  was  lifted  up 
literally  on  a  cross  and  spiritually  that  cross  has 
become  a  throne  to  which  He  is  drawing  the  very 
world  He  came  to  redeem.  That  is  to  say,  when- 
106 


**Zbc  Mrecfts  of  Uime**        i07 

ever  men  have  been  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
cross  and  have  stood  before  it  reverently,  they 
have  always  been  drawn  to  the  person  hanging 
on  it  with  a  strange  compelling  interest.  The 
Christ  whom  Christianity  has  worshipped  has 
always  been  a  Christ  who  died.  Like  these 
powerful  magnets  which  you  will  see  carried 
every  evening  through  the  work  rooms  of  our 
large  millinery  shops,  picking  up  the  pins  and 
needles  dropped  by  the  workers  during  the  day, 
so  Christ  lifted  up  on  the  cross  is  drawing  to 
Himself,  with  a  mighty  magnetic  charm,  all 
classes  of  men  and  women  who  have  fallen  by  the 
wayside  and  raising  them  up  to  hope  and  courage 
and  purity  and  peace.  Love  sent  Him  down  to 
earth  to  seek  the  lost  and  love  lifted  Him  up 
from  the  earth  to  save  the  lost.  His  life  charms 
us,  His  example  inspires  us,  His  miracles  astonish 
us,  but  it  is  His  death  that  draws  us. 

One  of  the  many  remarkable  features  about 
the  Bible  is  the  way  it  records  the  passion  of  our 
Lord.  Almost  one-third  of  Matthew's  story, 
about  two-fifths  of  Mark's,  one-fourth  of  Luke's 
and  well-nigh  half  of  John's  relate  to  events 
within  one  week  of  the  end.  Of  John's  twenty- 
one  chapters  the  last  nine  are  taken  up  with  the 
last  twenty-four  hours  of  this  wonderful  life. 
Only  two  of  the  Evangelists  tell  the  story  of  His 
birth,  only  two  tell  the  story  of  His  temptation, 
only  two  recount  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  but 


t08  ''Songs  in  tbe  mght** 

every  one  of  them  enlarges  on  the  tragedy  of 
His  death.  And  the  way  they  describe  it  is 
striking.  They  all  tell  it  in  a  unique  way.  There 
is  no  comment.  There  are  very  few  adjectives. 
Indeed  the  scarcity  of  adjectives  is  very  notice- 
able. In  its  self-restraint  it  is  a  truly  astonish- 
ing narrative.  It  is  aU  told  so  calmly.  There  is 
not  a  sigh,  not  a  tear,  not  a  single  remark  about 
the  cold  cruelty  of  the  deed.  '  *  The  style  of  the 
Gospel, ' '  says  Pascal,  * '  is  admirable  in  many  re- 
spects  and  amongst  others  in  this,  that  there  is 
not  a  single  invective  against  the  murderers  and 
enemies  of  Jesus  Christ. ' '  The  language  is  sober 
and  restrained.  There  is  no  straining  after  effect. 
There  are  no  "patches  of  purple  rhetoric."  It 
is  all  recorded  with  such  seeming  indifference. 
The  most  awful  facts  are  written  down  in  the 
simplest,  coolest  way.  In  sheer  frankness  it  is 
like  the  tale  of  a  little  child.  "And  sitting  down 
they  watched  Him  there." 

Now  the  first  thing  that  strikes  us  as  we  eon- 
template  these  words  is  the  genuine  ring  of  con- 
fidence there  is  in  them.  One  cannot  fail  to  ob- 
serve that.  They  are  spoken  in  a  tone  almost  of 
jubilant  rapture.  It  is  indeed  a  lilt  in  the  night. 
Our  Lord  knew  what  was  before  Him,  He  knew 
He  was  to  suffer ;  He  knew  He  was  to  die,  and  He 
knew  He  was  to  die  a  violent  death.  And  yet  we 
observe  that  His  answer  is  one  of  victory,  not  of 
defeat.    "Who  for  the  joy  that  was  set  before 


•*Ube  Wrecfts  ot  Uime"         jo? 

him  endured  the  cross,  despising  the  shame." 
"If  you  ask  me,"  says  Savonarola,  as  he  was 
being  led  to  the  stake,  ' '  what  shall  be  in  general 
the  issue  of  this  struggle,  I  reply  Victory.  If 
you  ask  me  what  shall  be  the  issue  in  the  par- 
ticular sense,  I  reply  Death. ' '  It  was  the  answer 
of  a  seer.  It  was  the  answer  of  the  prophet  of 
Galilee. 

And  we  cannot  very  well  help  asking  the  ques- 
tion, have  the  words  before  us  been  verified? 
Have  they  been  substantiated?  Have  they  been 
fulfilled?  Have  they  come  true?  Or  are  they 
a  mere  idle  boast  which  has  been  completely 
negatived  by  the  facts?  Let  us  approach  this 
question  in  the  spirit  of  sober  inquiry,  and  let 
us  begin  with  the  light  of  history. 

And  in  order  to  do  this  fairly  and  impartially 
let  us  observe  at  the  outset  one  or  two  things. 
There  is  first  of  all  the  condition  stated.  It  is 
not  temporal,  mark;  it  is  conditional.  It  does 
not  say,  "When  I  am  lifted  up."  Some  would 
read  it  that  way  but  it  is  not  an  accurate  render- 
ing. The  text  says,  "If  I  be  lifted  up."  It  is 
if,  not  when.  The  clause  is  hjrpothetical.  Christ 
is  not  concerned  with  the  time  but  with  the  re- 
sults of  His  passion.  He  saw  the  real  signifi- 
cance of  His  own  death.  To  His  followers  His 
crucifixion  seemed  His  doom.  They  felt  sure  it 
sealed  His  fate.  They  felt  confident  it  meant 
His  permanent  overthrow.    They  did  not  realize 


no         ''Songs  in  tbe  niQbt** 

until  afterwards  that  it  behooved  the  Christ  to 
suffer  and  to  enter  into  His  glory. 

It  is  a  notable  and  undeniable  fact  that  our 
Lord  Himself  looked  forward  to  His  death  for 
the  most  far-reaching  and  compelling  results. 
He  was  always  anticipating  it  and  preparing  His 
disciples  for  it  before  it  came.  The  cross  was  the 
one  divine  event  towards  which  His  whole  min- 
istry moved.  He  came  to  give  His  life  a  ransom 
for  many.  In  our  text  He  declares  it  is  going  to 
attract  the  attention  of  the  world  when  it  comes. 
It  is  going  to  carry  with  it  elements  of  perma- 
nent and  paramount  surprise.  It  is  not  to  be 
simply  a  sentimental  spectacle  evoking  sympathy 
and  pity.  It  is  going  to  be  a  great  and  mighty 
influence,  the  putting  in  operation  of  a  new  law, 
and  a  new  truth,  that  is  to  rule  forever  the  hearts 
and  lives  of  men. 

And  strange  to  say,  history  substantiates  the 
challenge.  Every  one  knows  who  has  tried  it 
that  when  we  really  set  about  trying  to  save  men 
from  their  sins  the  cross  is  our  master  weapon. 
I  know  there  is  another  Christianity  in  the  world 
to-day.  We  are  hearing  a  great  deal  about  it. 
Many  object  to  the  word  blood.  It  jars  upon 
their  delicate  refinement.  We  hear  men  talk 
about  Jesus  as  the  founder  of  Christianity.  But 
nonsense !  He  is  not  the  founder  of  Christianity. 
He  is  Christianity.  He  is  its  living  centre. 
Some  one  has  said  that  war  is  a  "tragedy  in 


**Zhc  Mrec^s  of  Uime**         nt 

red."  Well,  Christianity  is  a  "revelation  in 
red."  A  Christianity  without  blood  is  a  weak 
and  poor  and  impotent  thing.  It  can  never  save 
the  world.  It  is  not  any  better  than  Buddhism. 
We  all  recognize  the  magnetism  of  sacrifice. 
In  his  "Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture,"  Ruskin 
says  that  all  the  bright  lamps  of  the  world  de- 
pend upon  the  lamp  of  sacrifice.  And  he  goes 
on  to  name  them — Beauty,  Obedience,  Truth,  etc. 
When  the  lamp  of  sacrifice  goes  out  all  the  others 
burn  dimly.  Even  the  lamp  of  Beauty  is  coarse 
and  bold  and  voluptuous  without  sacrifice.  *  *  You 
cannot  make  an  omelet  without  breaking  eggs, ' ' 
the  old  proverb  says.  Nor  can  we  better  the 
world  we  are  called  to  serve  without  shedding 
our  blood  on  the  altar  of  sacrifice.  On  your 
automobile  tires  is  stamped  the  name  Goodyear. 
It  is  only  a  trade  mark  but  it  calls  up  the  story 
of  a  life  of  sacrifice — a  life  that  for  twenty  years 
went  hungry  and  cold.  Do  you  recall  the  story 
of  Giordano  Bruno,  the  noble  Italian  who  pined 
away  in  prison  for  seven  long  years,  and  then 
walked  unflinchingly  to  the  flames?  It  seemed 
as  if  his  life  was  absolutely  wasted.  But  four 
centuries  later  the  people  of  his  native  town  un- 
veiled a  bronze  statue  to  his  memory  on  the  very 
identical  spot  where  the  hot  fires  had  incinerated 
him.  Who  does  not  love  to  read  the  matchless 
epic  of  Livingstone?  Think  of  a  great  strong 
cultured  man  leaving  the  comforts  of  home  and 


n2         "Songs  In  tbe  Biabt" 

pushing  through  swamp  and  marsh  and  jungle 
in  order  that  he  might  help  heal  the  running, 
bleeding  sore  of  the  world.  Racked  by  disease, 
wasted  by  fever,  with  ulcers  on  his  feet  till  every 
step  was  an  agony,  he  still  held  on,  inspired  by 
the  divine  love  of  his  great  and  noble  heart. 
What  is  it  but  the  power  of  a  mighty  sacrifice  ? 

"  Life  everywhere  is  fed  by  death. 
In  earth  and  sea  and  sky; 
And  that  a  rose  may  breathe  its  breath, 
Something  must  die." 

Nothing  overcomes  the  evil  in  man  like  the 
preaching  of  the  cross.  Nothing  lifts  him  out  of 
the  cruel  tyranny  of  sin  like  it.  It  breaks  up 
his  frozen  indifference.  It  warms  his  heart. 
You  may  proclaim  the  Man  of  Nazareth  as  a 
great  reformer  until  your  eyebrows  are  white, 
but  j''0ur  program  mil  lack  the  djmamic  of  the 
uplifted  Lord.  Some  people  imagine  that  the 
demands  of  the  Christian  faith  are  met  by  de- 
claiming about  Christian  ethics  or  humanitarian- 
ism  or  sociology.  It  is  as  if  one  spent  his  time 
describing  the  colour  of  the  hair  or  the  shape 
of  the  mouth  while  ignoring  the  living  spirit 
within.  *'Do  you  know,"  says  James  Gilmour, 
"what  it  is  that  makes  a  Mongolian  listen  most 
attentively?  It  is  the  central  doctrine  of  Chris- 
tianity. I  know  that  a  Chinaman  is  degraded 
and  sensual  and  corrupt,  but  he  has  a  human 
heart,  and  when  you  can  get  at  his  heart  it  re- 


**Zbc  XRIlrecfts  ot  xrimC*         »3 

spends  to  the  story  of  Calvary. ' '  More  than  one 
chaplain  has  told  me  that  the  most  popular  hymn 
with  the  boys  at  the  front  was,  ' '  When  I  survey 
the  wondrous  cross."  One  of  them  writes,  **I 
have  heard  great  audiences  representing  many 
regiments  and  many  types  sing  it  softly  as  if  it 
were  too  sacred  a  thing  to  be  noisy  about  and 
then  coming  out  with  a  great  burst  of  reality  on 
the  last  stanza : 

"  Were  the  whole  realm  of  nature  mine     ' 
That  were  a  present  far  too  small." 

And  speaking  of  hymns,  did  you  notice  the  hymn 
we  sang  this  morning,  "The  God  of  Abraham 
praise"?  It  was  written  by  a  young  man, 
Thomas  Olivers.  He  was  the  prodigal  son  of  the 
family.  So  black  was  his  record  that  he  became 
a  literal  vagabond,  a  common  tramp.  One  day 
he  reached  the  city  of  Bristol.  It  happened  that 
Whitfield  was  preaching.  He  saw  the  crowd  and 
went  in.  Whitfield  was  speaking  about  the  power 
of  the  cross.  Well,  to  make  a  long  story  short, 
his  life  was  changed.  He  went  back  to  his  native 
town  and  paid  off  his  debts.  He  became  the 
editor  of  a  church  paper  and  wrote  this  hymn. 
And  it  is  a  great  hymn ;  some  critics  claim  it  is 
the  most  finished  hynm  in  our  language. 

Some  years  ago  a  book  was  written  by  a  great 
English  scholar  called  "Facing  the  Facts."  In 
that  book  he  has  a  chapter  on  religion  at  the  uni« 


JH         ** Songs  in  tbe  miabt ** 

versities.  And  to  what  does  he  bid  us  look  for 
the  hope  of  the  future  ?  Why,  he  says,  to  gentle- 
manly manners,  to  art  and  beauty  and  refine- 
ment. Culture,  he  claims,  is  the  hope  of  the 
race.  The  work  of  all  the  saints  and  martyrs 
of  our  blood-bought  faith  is  only  a  matter  of 
culture.  All  the  passion  of  Paul,  the  consecrated 
learning  of  Augustine  is  simply  the  logic  of 
culture.  Well,  Germany  has  tried  culture,  and 
Germany's  greatest  son,  Goethe,  was  certainly  a 
man  of  culture.  He  has  been  called  "the  most 
splendid  specimen  of  cultivated  intellect  ever 
presented  to  the  world."  May  I  read  to  you  a 
paragraph  from  one  of  his  books.  No  one  has 
ever  accused  the  great  German  poet  of  being 
particularly  prejudiced  towards  evangelical  re- 
ligion. In  his  ' '  Confessions  of  a  Beautiful  Soul '  * 
he  writes  these  words : 

' '  I  leaned  upon  a  little  table  beside  me  and 
I  hid  my  tear-stained  face  in  my  hands,  but 
who  could  ever  express,  even  in  the  dimmest 
way,  the  experience  that  came  to  me  then? 
A  secret  influence  drew  my  soul  to  the  cross 
where  Jesus  died.  It  was  an  inward  lean- 
ing— I  cannot  give  it  any  other  name — an 
inward  leaning  like  that  which  draws  the 
heart  to  its  beloved  in  its  absence.  As  my 
soul  drew  near  to  Him  who  became  mine, 
and  died  upon  the  cross,  in  that  moment  I 
knew  what  faith  meant.  And  in  that  mo- 
ment my  spirit  received  a  wholly  new  power 
of  uplifting." 


**xrbe  Mrecfts  of  ^ime"        U5 

Striking  words,  don't  you  think,  coming  from 
such  a  source ! 

(2)  So  much  then  for  the  condition.  Now 
mark  the  method.  *'I  will  draw,"  He  declares. 
The  attraction  is  moral  not  physical.  Christ 
sustains  His  rule  by  influence  not  force.  His 
Kingdom  is  spiritual  not  material.  ' '  I  will  draw 
men."  The  sinner  cannot  save  himself  because 
there  can  be  no  life  without  sacrifice.  "  It  is  as 
if  a  man  tried  to  lift  his  body  out  of  a  pit  by 
pulling  himself  with  his  own  hands. ' '  The  thing 
is  impossible.  There  must  be  some  leverage  from 
without.  The  evolutionist  claims  that  we  must 
push  ourselves  up,  but  Christianity  says  there  is 
only  one  way  to  get  up  and  that  is  to  be  lifted  up. 
It  is  not  a  pushing  but  a  pulling  process. 

William  Blake,  the  poet  painter,  has  a  book  on 
Jerusalem.  In  that  book  there  is  a  plate  of  the 
crucifixion.  It  is  a  rather  remarkable  drawing. 
The  whole  scene  is  in  darkness  save  for  one 
feeble  ray  of  light  that  shows  the  Saviour  on  the 
cross.  And  at  the  foot  of  the  cross  there  is  a 
lonely  figure  with  outstretched  arms  in  an  atti- 
tude of  worship.  It  is  the  world  that  is  repre- 
sented. Surely  indeed  that  was  a  bold  stroke, 
to  put  not  the  mother  nor  the  beloved  disciple 
but  the  world  in  the  presence  of  its  suffering 
Lord,  just  at  the  moment  of  His  supreme  weak- 
ness. 

But  it  is  much  stronger  than  this;  "I  will 


U6         **SonQS  in  tbe  ViiQbt" 

draw  all  men, ' '  is  the  sweeping  challenge.  * '  AU 
men."  These  certainly  are  astonishing  words 
coming  from  the  lips  of  a  poor  peasant  who  had 
not  where  to  lay  His  head,  a  man  unknown  to 
kings  and  rulers,  a  man  who  failed  to  rally  His 
own  nation  to  His  side,  a  man  without  army  or 
navy  or  wealth  or  influence  or  reserves  of  any 
kind  to  add  significance  to  his  claims.  Most 
men  have  more  influence  in  life  than  in  death. 
In  life  Napoleon  was  a  world  figure  but  in  death 
he  was  a  weakling.  In  the  Hall  of  Battles  there 
is  a  famous  statue  of  the  great  Corsican.  He  is 
represented  as  sitting  in  a  chair  dying,  and  the 
hands  which  wielded  the  sceptre  of  all  Europe 
almost,  hang  limp  and  helpless  by  his  side;  the 
cheeks  are  sunken,  the  face  is  pale.  Abraham 
Lincoln's  influence  was  vastly  greater  after  his 
death  than  it  was  during  his  life,  but  he  never 
relied  on  his  death  to  bring  it  about.  Christ  did. 
He  pointed  forward  in  unmistakable  words  to 
His  death  as  the  secret  of  His  power.  He  de- 
clares that  His  death  and  His  world  empire  are 
related.  The  power  of  Jesus  as  displayed  in  His 
life  is  as  nothing  to  the  power  evidenced  in  His 
death.  He  is  the  only  man  in  the  history  of  the 
race  who  ever  put  forward  such  an  astonishing 
pronouncement.  There  have  been  great  prophets 
and  martyrs  and  saints  and  apostles  but  they  all 
pointed  to  the  past,  Jesus  does  not  point  to  the 
past ;  He  points  to  the  future.    He  points  to  His 


**Zbc  THUrecfts  of  ZCime"         n7 

death.  He  claims  to  be  the  conqueror  of  death. 
He  claims  to  have  the  keys  of  death.  * '  I  am  he 
that  liveth  and  was  dead  and  behold  I  am  alive 
for  evermore  and  have  the  keys  of  death  and  of 
hell." 

"I  will  draw  all  men;"  men  of  all  races — Jew 
and  Greek,  Eoman,  Scythian,  Celt  and  Teuton, 
Negro  and  Malay.  There  is  no  race  that  is  not 
sending  its  units  to  swell  the  mighty  chorus  of 
the  redeemed.  **A11  men!"  Men  of  all  types, 
strong  and  weak,  learned  and  unlearned,  rough 
and  gentle,  rude  and  refined.  There  is  no  man- 
ner of  men  whom  His  cross  has  not  subdued. 
Did  you  ever  observe  how  Paul  links  together  the 
Cross  and  the  Crown?  "He  became  obedient  to 
death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross  .  .  .  where- 
fore God  hath  highly  exalted  him."  According 
to  the  Apostle,  death  was  the  pathway  to  glory. 
It  was  by  dying  and  rising  again  that  He  was 
declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God  with  power.  And 
so  He  says  Himself,  "The  hour  is  come  that  the 
son  of  man  should  be  glorified." 

Some  read  the  verse,  "I  will  draw  the  whole 
man  unto  me."  Well,  that  reading  is  permis- 
sible and  it  is  true.  He  does  draw  the  whole 
man.  He  draws  every  talent,  every  gift  of  body 
and  mind  and  soul.  I  protest  against  the  notion 
that  only  certain  of  our  powers  belong  to  God. 
On  the  contrary,  every  faculty  of  our  being  is 
God-given  and  should  be  God-directed  and  God- 


ns  **  songs  in  tbe  fRtgbt" 

consecrated.  This  body  of  ours  is  not  vile  unless 
we  make  it  vile.  It  is  the  temple  of  the  Spirit. 
The  Psalmist  says,  "Bless  the  Lord  0  my  soul 
and  all  that  is  within  me  bless  his  holy  name." 
There  is  something  in  Christ  that  draws  and 
there  is  something  in  us  that  responds.  The 
magnet  does  not  draw  wood  or  stone,  but  it  does 
draw  iron  and  steel.  There  is  something  in  the 
iron  and  steel  that  surrenders.  That  was  a  fine 
remark  that  was  said  of  Alfred  Cookman  by  one 
of  his  brothers,  "If  you  swept  a  circle  of  three 
feet  round  the  cross,  inside  that  circle  you  could 
put  all  there  was  of  Alfred  Cookman. ' ' 

And  the  most  astonishing  part  of  the  whole 
sentence  is  the  last  two  words.  **I  will  draw  all 
men  unto  myself."  Everything  centres  in  the 
person  of  the  speaker.  He  claims  to  be  a  living 
magnet  not  a  dead  oracle.  It  is  all  very  well  to 
make  much  of  Paul  and  Calvin  and  Wesley  and 
Spurgeon  and  Newman,  but  sinners  are  never 
saved  until  everything  human  sinks  into  eclipse 
and  no  man  is  seen  save  Jesus  only.  For  Jesus 
is  the  light  and  glory  of  life.  Faith  finds  no 
resting  place  until  it  reaches  Him.  Not  what 
He  said  or  what  He  did  but  what  He  was  and 
what  He  is.  Criticism  finds  fault  with  Christi- 
anity's book  and  Christianity's  professor,  but 
criticism  finds  no  fault  with  Christianity's  Christ, 
And  what  makes  our  Gospel  so  wonderful  is  that 
it  is  the  Gospel  of  a  person.    Jesus  Christ  is  our 


**Zbc  THIlrccfts  ot  tTime**         U9 


Gospel.  Every  now  and  then  we  hear  of  some 
new  gospel  but  there  is  no  need  for  a  new  gospel 
until  the  old  one  has  been  tried.  Not  a  shred  of 
power  has  passed  away  from  the  old  message. 
It  is  as  mighty  to-day  as  ever.  ''Thy  word  has 
still  its  ancient  power."  His  offer  is  still  open ; 
it  has  never  been  closed.  "If  I  be  lifted  up," 
He  still  says  to  us, ' '  I  will  draw. ' '  And  it  would 
seem  from  this  that  if  men  are  not  drawn,  it  is 
because  He  has  not  been  clearly  lifted  up.  He 
died  for  us  once  and  now  He  calls  on  us  to  die 
for  Him.  He  was  lifted  up  once  by  hate ;  now 
He  asks  to  be  lifted  up  in  love.  The  greatest  of 
living  agnostics  is  reported  to  have  said  that  if 
he  really  believed  that  Jesus  Christ  had  died  for 
him  on  the  Cross,  he  would  not  write  nor  speak 
about  anything  else;  thus  showing  that  he 
grasped  the  tremendous  missionary  obligation 
which  the  Cross  implied.  The  Cross  is  the  one 
permanent  attraction.  Cities,  thrones,  dynasties 
pass  away  but  the  Cross  abides.  Where  is  Baby- 
lon to-day?  Where  is  Nineveh?  Who  cares 
now  that  Xerxes  crossed  the  Hellespont  ?  Where 
is  that  mighty  army  now?  Caesar's  throne  is  in 
the  dust,  but  Christ's  Cross  is  a  world  spectacle. 
Truly  indeed  it  towers  o'er  the  wrecks  of  time. 

"  Dear  suffering  Lamb,  Thy  bleeding  wounds, 
With  cords  of  love  divine, 
Have  drawn  our  willing  hearts  to  Thee, 
And  linked  our  life  with  Thine." 


VIII 


L<t        If*  4 


''WE  WILL  BE  TRUE  TO  THEE  TELL 
DEATH" 

"1  have  kept  tJie  faith." — 2  Timothy  4: 7. 

HESE  are  the  words  of  an  old 
man  written  at  the  close  of  a 
remarkably  strenuous  life.  He 
is  nearing  the  goal  of  his 
earthly  career ;  and  as  he  looks 
back  over  the  road  he  has 
travelled,  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  spots  where 
memory  lingers,  and  to  hear  him  exclaim  with 
a  glad  thrill  of  victory,  *'I  have  fought  a  good 
fight,  I  have  finished  my  course,  I  have  kept  the 
faith." 

When  men  are  about  to  leave  this  world  they 
are  usually  genuine,  and  as  a  rule  they  do  not 
play  the  braggart.  Some,  to  be  sure,  have  been 
insincere,  and  some  have  boasted.  One  says,  I 
have  made  a  fortune,  another  I  have  had  a  good 
time.  Some  have  gloried  in  their  crimes,  some 
have  mocked ;  a  few  have  been  false  and  double- 
faced  even  in  the  presence  of  the  All-Seeing  be- 
fore whom  no  unreality  can  live.  The  gambler 
has  been  known  to  shuffle  his  deck  of  cards  on 
his  dying  couch,  and  the  drunkard  to  call  out  for 

120 


**Zt\xc  xrui  Beatb''  m 

his  drink,  and  the  moral  leper  to  wallow  in  the 
memory  of  his  lust.  But  these  things  are  not  the 
usual.  The  usual  is  that  when  men  come  to  de- 
part, their  better  nature  asserts  itself.  Dying 
men  as  a  rule  do  not  lie.  The  average  soul  is 
humble  and  penitent  and  prayerful  and  truth- 
ful when  it  stands  in  the  searching  light  of  the 
Eternal.  "When  Whittier  was  breathing  his  last 
in  his  little  village  home  up  in  Massachusetts  the 
nurse  pulled  down  the  blinds.  It  was  in  the 
early  morning,  and  the  rising  sun  was  in  the 
dying  man's  eyes.  But  the  last  thing  the  great 
Quaker  poet  did  was  to  wave  his  hand  to  have 
the  curtain  lifted.  He  wanted  to  depart  in  the 
full  splendour  of  the  morning  and  in  the  warm 
glory  of  its  pure  white  beams.  And  is  not  this  a 
parable  of  human  nature  everywhere?  The  cry 
of  the  dying  is  the  cry  of  Balaam,  **Let  me  die 
the  death  of  the  righteous  and  let  my  last  end  be 
like  his." 

The  last  words  of  great  men  have  always  been 
prized  and  cherished.  How  beautiful  Cookman's 
note  of  triumph:  "I  am  sweeping  through  the 
gates."  The  poet  Schiller  looks  up  and  says, 
"Many  things  are  growing  plain  to  me  now." 
Goethe  cries,  **More  light."  **The  best  of  all 
is  God  is  with  us,"  was  the  quiet  remark  of 
John  Wesley.  Webster  exclaims,  "I  still  live." 
Beethoven  whispers,  "I  shall  hear  in  heaven." 
Jacob  Behmen  lisps,  ''Open  the  door  and  let  in 


J22  **  Songs  in  tbe  naiabt" 

some  of  that  music."  He  was  hearing  the 
heavenly  choir  already.  The  last  words  of 
Christmas  Evans  were,  **  Drive  on."  He  was 
finishing  his  earthly  race  and  was  in  a  hurry 
for  the  chariot  to  take  him  home  to  God.  A 
dear  friend  said  not  more  than  ten  minutes  be- 
fore he  closed  his  eyes  forever,  "My  trunk  is  all 
packed  and  I'm  just  waiting  for  the  express- 
man." Among  the  closing  words  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott  are  these:  How  magnificently  noble  they 
are!  How  beautiful!  "I  have  been  perhaps  the 
most  voluminous  author  of  my  day,  and  it  is  a 
comfort  to  me  now  to  think  that  I  have  never 
tried  to  unsettle  any  man 's  faith ;  and  that  I  have 
written  nothing  which  on  my  death  bed  I  would 
want  blotted  out."  What  a  "Song  in  the  night" 
that  was!  What  a  glorious  thing  it  is,  in  the 
sunset  of  life,  to  be  able  to  look  back  upon  the 
past  with  satisfaction  and  on  the  future  with 
hope.  To  feel  at  the  last  hour  that  the  past 
is  reproaching  us  must  be  an  unspeakably  bitter 
cup  to  drink,  but  to  be  able  to  face  it  and  feel 
that  it  is  friendly,  and  then  to  turn  around  and 
look  into  the  future  and  know  for  certain  that 
it  is  bright — this  is  an  experience  that  all  true 
men  covet.  Sir  Humphrey  Davey  at  the  end  of 
his  brilliant  career  wrote  these  words,  **  I  envy 
no  quality  of  mind  or  intellect  in  others,  not 
genius,  power,  wit  or  fancy.  But  if  I  could 
choose  what  would  be  most  delightful  and  I 


**Xi:rue  urn  Deatb"  J23 

believe  most  useful  to  me,  I  should  prefer  a 
fii'm  religious  belief  to  every  other  blessing; 
because  it  makes  life  a  discipline  of  goodness, 
creates  new  hopes  when  all  earthly  hopes  vanish, 
throws  over  the  decay  of  existence  the  most 
gorgeous  of  all  lights."  That  was  the  profound 
confession  of  a  great  scientist,  who  was  sin- 
gularly successful,  but  whose  life  was  strangely 
unhappy. 

The  gi'eat  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  as  he  lay 
in  his  Roman  dungeon,  knew  well  that  martyr- 
dom was  before  him,  but  he  had  the  joy  too  of 
knowing  that  the  past  had  only  pleasant  mem- 
ories, and  that  the  future  had  in  store  for  him  a 
prize  that  was  priceless,  a  crown  that  was  un- 
fading. "Henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me 
a  crown  of  righteousness  which  the  Lord  the 
righteous  judge  will  give  me  at  that  day,  and 
not  to  me  only  but  unto  all  them  also  that  love 
his  appearing."  Now  I  learn  from  these  words 
of  the  text  several  lessons.  Let  us  take  a  run- 
ning glance  at  them. 

I.  And  the  first  lesson  is  this,  that  the  Faith 
the  Apostle  kept  was  a  definite  thing.  There 
must  have  been  something  specific  to  keep  before 
he  could  be  said  to  have  kept  it.  When  he  ex- 
claimed, "I  have  kept  the  faith,"  he  must  have 
had  something  explicit  and  concrete  in  his 
mind.  In  another  passage  he  exhorts  his  friends 
to  "contend  earnestly  for  the  faith  once  for  all 


J24         ** Songs  in  tbe  niQbt'* ' 

delivered  to  the  saints."  Not  simply  once,  note, 
"Once  for  all." 

If  you  take  your  New  Testament  and  mark 
every  verse  where  these  words  "the  faith"  are 
used,  I  think  you  will  be  surprised.  It  means 
a  systematized  body  of  truth,  a  record  of  certain 
facts  about  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ — His  incar- 
nation, His  life,  His  death,  His  resurrection,  the 
love  of  the  Father,  redemption  through  the 
cross,  sanctification  through  the  Spirit.  It  seems 
almost  worse  than  silly  to  say  that  it  matters 
little  or  nothing  to  our  Christian  life  whether 
these  things  are  true  or  not.  The  way  many 
of  us  feel  about  it  is  this — they  are  the  only 
things  after  all  that  really  do  matter.  People 
are  not  going  to  accept  blindly  a  subjective 
Christ  on  our  lonely  authority.  They  want 
something  more  surely  attested.  They  want  a 
Christ  historical  as  well  as  spiritual.  They  will 
demand  to  see  the  print  of  the  nails  in  His  hand 
and  the  spear  thrust  in  His  side.  Nothing  less 
than  the  New  Testament  story  will  satisfy  them. 
They  want  a  Christ  as  substantial  as  history. 
"For  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his 
only  begotten  son  that  whosoever  believeth  on 
him  should  not  perish  but  have  everlasting  life." 
That  is  the  faith  the  Apostle  felt  he  was  com- 
missioned to  conserve. 

We  are  hearing  much  to-day  of  Paul's  the- 
ology.   We  are  being  told  that  such  and  such 


"Xrrue  uni  Beatb"  J25 

doctrines  are  Paul's  not  Christ's.  Just  as  if  the 
Apostle  had  forgotten  that  he  was  an  ambassador 
and  had  succeeded  in  persuading  himself  that  he 
was  an  authority,  promulgating  laws  and  de- 
manding obedience.  But  did  not  he  himself  say 
to  the  Galatian  Christians,  "I  certify  to  you, 
brethren,  that  the  Gospel  which  was  preached  of 
me  is  not  after  man,  for  I  neither  received  it  of 
man,  neither  was  I  taught  it,  but  by  the  revela- 
tion of  the  Lord. ' '  And  does  not  John  begin  the 
last  book  of  the  Bible  with  these  expressive 
words,  "The  Revelation  of  Jesus  Christ  which 
God  gave  unto  him  to  show  unto  his  servants 
things  which  must  shortly  come  to  pass,  and  he 
sent  and  signified  it  by  his  angel  unto  his 
servant  John."  There  are  people  who  are  tell- 
ing us  to-day  that  any  attempt  to  prove  that 
Christianity  means  something  definite  and  ex- 
cludes something  else  that  is  also  definite,  is 
interfering  with  the  sacred  right  of  scholarly  in- 
vestigation. Definite  lines  of  any  kind  are  im- 
patiently resented.  And  any  attempt  to  pre- 
scribe a  particular  system  of  rules  for  daily  liv- 
ing is  regarded  as  narrow  and  sectarian.  We 
are  living  in  an  age  when  creeds  are  laughed  at, 
when  theology  is  bracketed  with  superstition, 
when  men  turn  to  the  latest  novel  oftentimes, 
rather  than  to  the  Word  of  the  Lord,  for  their 
spiritual  guidance.  One  of  the  strange  symptoms 
of  our  day  is  the  way  we  salute  the  outsider. 


J26         "Songs  in  tbe  TRiabt" 

What  does  the  outsider  think?  we  ask.  The 
opinion  of  the  outsider  is  regarded  and  welcomed 
in  many  quarters  as  a  matter  of  ultimate  and 
non-debatable  authority.  His  criticism  of  re- 
ligious truth  is  listened  to  with  the  profoundest 
respect.  His  judgment  is  consulted.  Even  the 
Church  stands  in  silent  awe  of  him.  What  H.  G. 
Wells  thinks  of  certain  doctrinal  points  carries 
far  more  weight  in  some  quarters  than  what 
George  Adam  Smith  thinks. 

But  what  right  has  the  outsider  to  dogmatize 
on  Biblical  criticism?  Who  gave  him  the  final 
credentials?  By  what  authority  does  he  come 
forth  to  instruct  us  on  the  things  of  the  soul? 
In  a  recent  article  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett  writes 
these  words,  ''The  war  has  demonstrated  the 
authenticity  of  one  event  which  in  importance 
far  transcends  the  war  itself,  viz.,  the  collapse 
of  the  Christian  religion."  In  the  same  article 
he  makes  another  astonishing  deliverance:  "My 
curiosity  about  a  future  life  never  inconveni- 
ences me.  I  have  no  supernatural  religion,  and 
I  never  had  one. ' '  Now  why  should  the  attitude 
of  a  man  like  that  carry  any  weight  with  us  on 
spiritual  things?  If  the  question  of  a  future 
life  does  not  even  interest  a  man,  what  are  his 
views  on  other  religious  questions  worth?  Sir 
Arthur  Conan  Doyle  tells  good  detective  stories. 
Let  him  stick  to  his  last. 

This  is  not  denying  that  the  Faith  has  its  ex^ 


crescences.  For  that  we  all  admit,  aud  with 
sorrow.  Much  that  is  non-essential  and  ex- 
traneous and  false  has  been  grafted  on  to  the 
creeds  of  the  Church.  There  are  many  points  of 
very  minor  importance  which  have  been  allowed 
to  have  far  too  much  say,  and  entirely  too  much 
space,  in  the  things  that  men  once  counted  para- 
mount and  vital.  The  Infallibility  of  the  Pope 
was  not  decreed  until  1870 ;  that  certainly  is  no 
part  of  the  body  of  truth  once  delivered  to  the 
saints.  The  dogma  of  the  Immaculate  Concep- 
tion dates  back  only  to  1854.  The  doctrine  of 
Transubstantiation  goes  back  to  the  Lateran 
Council  of  1216.  Does  any  one  claim  that  these 
man-made  dogmas  are  part  of  the  organic  struc- 
ture of  revealed  religion?  When  we  read  the 
minutes  of  some  of  the  old  Church  Councils  we 
must  all  confess  that  a  whole  lot  of  it  is  very  sad 
and  very  dreadful  reading.  We  think,  for  in- 
stance, of  the  second  Council  of  Ephesus,  "the 
robber  Council,"  as  it  has  been  called,  where 
amid  the  wildest  uproar  the  old  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople  was  trampled  to  death.  In  order 
to  decide  the  nature  of  our  Lord's  Person  the 
delegates  were  armed  with  cudgels.  In  this  very 
Council  a  question  was  raised  as  to  the  chastity 
of  a  certain  bishop,  and  the  ruling  of  the  chair 
was,  "If  you  have  a  complaint  against  his  ortho- 
doxy we  will  hear  it,  but  we  are  not  here  to  de- 
cide on  his  chastity.'*    And  such  disgraceful 


J28         "SouQs  in  tbe  IFHabt" 

scenes  have  occurred  time  and  again  in  the  his- 
tory of  religious  assemblies.  Truth  has  been 
proclaimed  on  the  authority  of  noisy  public 
gatherings  and  by  men  armed.  That  the  Church 
has  survived  such  scandalous  treatqient  is  surely 
the  strongest  evidence  of  the  divine  and  im- 
mortal energy  at  its  heart. 

The  Faith  is  a  question  of  fundamentals ;  and 
fundamentals  do  not  change.  They  do  not  change 
in  theology  any  more  than  in  science.  The 
Copernican  system  of  astronomy  is  fixed.  The 
law  of  gravity  is  final.  There  are  two  hundred 
and  eight  bones  in  the  human  body,  always  have 
been,  and  most  likely  always  will  be.  Music 
may  combine  new  tones  but  she  never  made  one. 
The  circulation  of  the  blood  is  not  a  geographical 
arrangement.  Our  blood  flows  as  the  blood  of 
Virgil  flowed.  Our  heart  beats  as  did  the  heart 
of  Homer.  The  Aristotelian  system  of  logic  is  a 
final  thing.  These  things  are  eternal.  They  are 
for  all  time.  They  are  like  the  Ten  Command- 
ments and  the  Golden  Rule — inflexible,  unalter- 
able. Professor  Proctor  used  to  remark  that  a 
good  text-book  on  the  laws  of  light  down  here 
would  be  a  good  text-book  on  the  North  Polar 
Star.  A  good  book  on  gravity  in  this  world 
would  be  trustworthy  in  any  world.  Right  is 
right  and  wrong  is  wrong  on  both  sides  of  the 
Line.  For  truth  is  universal  and  eternal.  And 
the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints  as  revealed 


in  the  New  Testament  and  interpreted  under  the 
guidance  of  the  Spirit — this  faith  in  its  great 
broad  scope,  in  its  comprehensive  sweep,  in  its 
bed-rock  essentials,  in  its  spiritual  significance 
is  an  eternal  thing  too.  It  must  not  be  burdened 
with  details.  It  will  consist  of  great,  large,  liv- 
ing facts.  This  does  not  mean  that  all  religious 
truth  can  be  formulated  any  more  than  love  can 
be  formulated,  or  hope  or  joy  or  peace  or  duty 
or  life.  You  cannot  measure  what  is  immeasur-. 
able.  You  cannot  formulate  what  is  spiritual 
and  primarJ^  You  can  only  formulate  what  is 
scientific  and  secondary. 

II.  Then  secondly,  it  was  a  precious  thing. 
Paul  was  not  the  man  to  waste  his  energies  on 
something  that  was  of  no  importance.  He  was 
far  too  big  and  too  brainy  a  scholar  for  that. 
"When  we  are  told  that  he  guarded  something 
with  such  jealous  care,  we  are  safe  in  concluding 
that  it  must  have  been  a  treasure  of  surpassing 
value.  Why  should  a  man  on  the  eve  of  his 
martyrdom  boast  of  having  kept  a  trust  that 
after  all  was  not  worth  the  keeping  ? 

And  just  what  was  this  treasure?  Why,  it 
concerned  those  enduring  relations  that  the  soul 
sustains  to  its  God.  And  it  comprised  pardon 
for  sin,  freedom  from  its  power,  the  infinite 
riches  of  grace  offered  freely  to  all,  and  then  to 
complete  all,  a  crown  of  glory,  an  inheritance 
incorruptible,  undefiled,   and  that  fadeth  not 


J30  **Son0s  in  tbe  TRigbt" 

away.  It  was  not  a  system  of  truth  he  had  dis- 
covered, but  a  revelation  he  had  received.  He 
speaks  of  it  as  a  precious  treasure  committed  to 
his  keeping.  And  now  that  the  fight  is  over,  he 
points  to  the  treasure  by  his  side  and  says,  "Here 
it  is,  I  have  not  lost  it.  I  have  kept  it  safe." 
"I  know  whom  I  have  believed,"  he  says.  That 
good  thing  which  was  committed  unto  me 
I  have  guarded  through  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Spirit, 

There  is  almost  a  consensus  of  opinion  upon 
this  point.  Even  those  who  are  most  out  of 
sympathy  with  religious  things  are  free  to  con- 
fess that  they  wish  they  could  see  their  way 
clear  to  accept  the  Christian  point  of  view.  A 
great  railroad  president  said  publicly  not  many 
years  ago,  **I  would  give  all  I  have  if  I  could 
get  back  to  the  faith  of  my  childhood. ' '  One  of 
Balzac's  short  stories  is  entitled  "The  Atheist's 
Mass."  The  story  is  about  a  great  French  sur- 
geon who  was  an  Atheist.  One  day  he  was  ob- 
served going  into  the  Cathedral  to  attend  mass. 
On  being  pressed  for  an  explanation  he  replied 
that  he  did  it  out  of  respect  to  Bourgeat.  He 
was  a  poor  boy  and  Bourgeat  had  educated  him. 
Bourgeat  was  poor  himself,  but  he  took  a  liking 
to  the  young  doctor  and  shared  with  him  his 
scanty  savings,  and  made  many  sacrifices  to  put 
him  through  college.  And  in  memory  of  his  old 
benefactor  he  always  came  to  church  four  times 


**.Urue  urn  Wcatbr  J3J 

a  year  to  pray  this  prayer  to  whatever  gods 
there  be : 

**If  there  is  a  place  after  death  you  put 
those  who  have  been  perfect,  think  of  good 
Bourgeat;  and  if  he  has  still  anything  to 
suffer,  lay  these  sufferings  on  me,  so  that  he 
may  enter  the  sooner  into  what  they  call 
Paradise." 

"This,"  the  surgeon  said  to  his  friend,  "is  all 
that  a  man  who  holds  my  opinions  can  allow  him- 
self. But  I  swear  to  you  that  I  would  give  my 
fortune  for  the  sake  of  finding  the  faith  of 
Bourgeat  coming  into  my  brain." 

The  trouble  with  the  Church  is,  that  she  has 
been  confusing  the  truth  with  the  accretions 
that  have  collected  around  it.  We  must  not  mis- 
take the  paper  and  string  that  wraps  the  precious 
jewel,  with  the  jewel.  The  world  cares  less  and 
less  for  the  old  stale  creedal  phrases;  it  never 
cared  as  little  as  it  does  to-day.  What  men  want 
to-day  is  the  living  reality;  not  were  there 
streams  of  gi'ace  once  but  are  there  streams  now  ? 
Arguments  for  faith  do  not  much  count ;  what  is 
wanted  is  an  expression  of  faith.  Newman  once 
said,  "Religion  is  ever  changing  in  order  to  re- 
main the  same. ' '  Principal  Selbie  remarked  the 
other  day,  "We  have  heard  a  great  deal  about 
old  theology  and  new  theology,  but  what  the  age 
needs  is  a  living  theology." 


J32         '•Sonos  in  tbe  IRIgbt*' 

III.  But  I  think  in  these  words  the  Apostle 
also  refers  to  his  own  relationship  to  God,  his 
personal  loyalty  to  his  Saviour.  No  doubt  he 
has  in  mind  the  fact  that  he  had  been  faithful  to 
his  God.  Men  lose  their  spiritual  passion  as  they 
grow  old,  but  here  was  a  man  who  kept  his 
enthusiasm  for  his  Master  to  the  very  end.  And 
when  he  declares  that  he  had  kept  the  faith,  he 
means  that  he  had  never  swerved  from  his 
allegiance  to  Him  whose  he  was  and  whom  he 
served. 

Because,  my  friends,  all  religious  truth  comes 
to  us  first  by  tradition.  We  are  taught  these 
things  at  our  mothers'  knees.  But  we  cannot  be 
said  to  hold  any  truth  until  the  truth  reaches 
down  into  the  life.  It  must  become  part  of  the 
conscience  and  the  affections  and  the  wiU,  before 
it  will  minister  to  our  spiritual  nature  and  enable 
us  to  grow  in  Christian  virtue  and  grace.  It  is 
a  good  deal  easier  to  defend  a  dogma  than  it  is  to 
live  a  life.  The  only  way  to  keep  a  faith  is  to 
root  it  in  the  soil  of  character  and  let  it  grow. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  hold  a  tradition.  Traditions 
have  been  held  through  sheer  stubbornness  or 
bigotry.  But  to  keep  a  faith  is  different ;  that  is 
not  easy.  For  faith  is  a  living  thing,  and  living 
things  grow  and  change  and  mature.  Living 
things  adapt  themselves  to  circumstances.  A 
living  faith  moves  the  heart,  enlightens  the  mind, 
renews  the  will,  stirs  the  conscience,  purifies  the 


"Xrrue  Uill  2)eatb**  J33 


imagination,  seizes  the  affections.  In  a  word, 
keeping  a  living  faith  implies  fellowship  wiih 
God.  And  this  is  the  faith  the  Apostle  kept. 
He  kept  it  by  prayer  and  supplication,  by 
shedding  tears  night  and  day,  by  holding  it  fast 
in  faith  and  love,  by  guarding  it  as  a  watchman 
guards  a  safe  deposit. 

Unfortunately  it  is  possible  to  be  a  Bible 
scholar  and  yet  not  be  a  Christian.  It  sounds 
incredible  but  it  is  true — one  can  be  a  theologian 
and  yet  not  be  a  saint.  One  can  have  a  passion 
for  exegesis,  and  yet  have  no  passion  for  souls. 
It  is  possible  to  have  a  commentary  as  our  con- 
stant companion,  and  yet  have  no  companionship 
with  the  Lord.  Henry  Drummond  tells  in  one 
of  his  books,  "The  New  Evangelism,"  of  a  man 
he  knew,  who  was  the  author  of  a  well-known 
orthodox  theological  work  which  passed  through 
a  dozen  editions.  And  speaking  of  him  Dr. 
Drummond  says,  **I  never  knew  that  man  to  go 
to  church  or  give  a  farthing  to  charity,  although 
he  was  a  rich  man,  nor  to  give  any  sensible  sign 
whatever  that  he  had  ever  heard  of  Christi- 
anity." Jane  Addams  in  her  book,  "Twenty 
Years  at  Hull  House,"  speaks  of  a  man  whose 
conscience  was  troubled  about  giving  money  to  a 
certain  settlement  because  said  settlement  gave 
no  religious  instruction.  The  trustees  of  the 
settlement,  on  the  other  hand,  were  greatly  per- 
plexed as  to  whether  they  ought  to  accept  the 


J34         "Sottas  itx  tbe  naiabt" 

money  because  of  the  unscrupulous  way  in  which 
it  had  been  made. 

Let  us  then  hear  the  conclusion  of  the  whole 
matter.  Do  not  be  satisfied,  I  beseech  you,  to 
have  your  name  simply  on  the  church  roll.  It  is 
possible,  unfortunately  possible,  to  be  a  Christian 
and,  as  somebody  says,  "to  have  astonishingly 
little  to  show  for  it."  Strive  to  be  a  victor  in 
this  great  fight.  Strive  to  get  some  real  joy 
out  of  it.  Strive  to  adorn  the  doctrine.  Strive 
to  be  true  to  its  ideals.     Strive  to  be  faithful. 

"  Faith  of  our  fathers  living  still, 
In  spite  of  dungeon  fire  and  sword, 
Faith  of  our  fathers,  holy  faith. 
We  will  be  true  to  thee  till  death." 


JX 


**1  YIELD  MY  FLICKERING  TORCH 
TO  THEE*' 

"I  teseech  you  therefore,  hretJiren,  by  the 
mercies  of  God,  that  ye  present  your  bodies 
a  living  sacrifice,  holy,  acceptable  unto  God, 
which  is  your  reasonable  service." 

— Romans  12 : 1. 

HIS  letter  to  the  Romans  is 
divided  into  two  parts.  The 
first  part  is  doctrinal,  the  sec- 
ond is  practical.  And  the  divid- 
ing line  is  at  this  verse.  You 
noticed,  did  you  not,  that  the 
last  word  of  the  previous  chapter  is  the  word 
"Amen."  **To  him  be  the  glory  forever  and 
ever.  Amen."  That  closes  part  one.  Now  be- 
gins part  two. 

The  first  eleven  chapters  are  doctrinal,  I  re- 
peat. They  are  theological.  They  fairly  revel 
in  the  hidden  mysteries  of  the  great  plan  of  re- 
demption. But  when  we  come  to  chapter  twelve 
the  tide  turns.  Now  it  is  the  practical,  the  every- 
day. The  last  five  chapters  are  the  straight  ap- 
plication of  these  great,  rich,  wondrous  truths 
to  life.  We  hear  almost  nothing  henceforward 
about  faith  or  justification  or  predestination. 
135 


J36  **Sonos  in  the  miobt" 

Now  it  is  duty,  conduct,  character,  service.  "I 
beseech  you  therefore,  brethren,  by  the  mercies 
of  God,  that  ye  present  your  bodies  a  living 
sacrifice,  holy,  acceptable  to  God,  which  is  your 
reasonable  service. ' ' 

I  wonder  if  you  will  allow  me  to  turn  aside 
for  half  a  minute  just  to  say,  as  we  pass  on,  that 
this  is  always  the  procedure  of  the  Bible.  I 
do  not  believe  there  is  a  great  practical  duty 
emphasized  in  the  Word  of  God  that  is  not 
rooted  in  some  fundamental  article  of  our 
credenda.  Many  to-day  are  trying  to  divorce 
doctrine  from  duty.  Give  us  the  practical,  they 
say,  never  mind  the  theoretical.  Give  us  the 
ethics  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  never  mind  his  hard 
iron-clad  theology.  But  you  cannot  get  the 
ethics  without  the  theology,  not  in  the  Bible. 
You  cannot  have  the  apples  without  the  apple 
tree.  You  cannot  have  the  plums  without  the 
plum  tree.  As  Dr.  Morgan  puts  it,  "You  can- 
not gi'ow  the  tulips  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
unless  you  get  the  bulbs  from  heaven." 

I  claim  that  every  duty  in  the  New  Testament 
is  driven  home  by  the  Gospel  hammer.  When 
we  are  encouraged  to  moral  purity,  it  is  because 
the  Eternal  God  is  pure.  Listen  to  this:  "Hus- 
bands, love  your  wives,  as  Christ  also  loved  the 
Church.'*  Or  this:  "Masters,  give  unto  your 
servants  that  which  is  just,  knowing  that  ye  also 
have  a  Master  in  heaven."    Perhaps  one  of  the 


most  striking  illustrations  is  found  in  the  ex- 
ample of  lowly  service,  as  illustrated  in  the 
symbol  of  washing  the  disciples'  feet.  This  is 
how  it  reads:  "Jesus  knowing  that  he  came  forth 
from  God,  and  goeth  unto  God,  took  a  towel." 
That  was  a  bold  stroke,  wasn't  it,  linking  God 
with  a  towel  ?  The  passage,  some  one  says,  is  like 
a  little  root  shooting  through  the  ground,  but 
when  you  pull  it  up  it  tears  up  the  soil,  and  as 
you  keep  pulling,  it  leads  you  clear  over  to  the 
trunk.  When  the  Apostle  Paul  himself  would  in- 
culcate lowliness  of  mind  on  the  members  of  the 
Church  at  Philippi  you  remember  how  he  intro- 
duces it.  "Let  this  mind  be  in  you  which  was 
also  in  Christ  Jesus  who,  being  in  the  form  of 
God,  took  upon  him  the  form  of  a  servant. ' ' 

Or  once  more,  take  such  a  sordid  and  worldly 
matter  as  the  duty  of  giving.  Mark  how  it  is 
led  up  to  in  the  letter  to  the  Corinthians. 
"Therefore, my  beloved  brethren, be  ye  steadfast, 
unmovable,  always  abounding  in  the  work  of  the 
Lord,  forasmuch  as  ye  know  that  your  labour  is 
not  in  vain  in  the  Lord,  Now  concerning  the 
collection."  Did  you  catch  that  quick  transi- 
tion? Why  it  is  so  swift  and  sudden  that  were 
it  not  for  the  division  of  the  Epistle  just  here 
into  chapters,  and  the  consequent  pause,  it  might 
suggest  an  irrelevancy?  The  Apostle  has  just 
finished  his  great  colossal  argument  on  the  resur- 
rection, and  the  lesson  he  draws  from  it  is  this : 


J38         "Songs  tn  tbe  IRiabt" 

Wherefore,  my  beloved  brethren,  if  these  things 
are  so,  if  your  faith  is  so  great  and  rich,  your 
beneficence  ought  to  be  great  and  rich.  A  hope 
so  gracious  and  generous  ought  to  express  itself 
in  a  service  that  is  generous.  So  let  us  come  now 
to  the  collection.  Some  one  has  said  that  in  the 
Bible  if  we  dig  deep  enough  we  will  find  the 
words,  *  *  Do  what  is  right. ' '  And  then  when  we 
have  found  them,  if  we  just  dig  a  bit  deeper  we 
will  find  the  precept  rooted  in  eternal  right. 

Now  I  am  going  to  ask  you  to  look  with  me  for 
a  few  moments  at  the  wording  of  this  great 
verse.  Because  it  has  three  or  four  rather  preg- 
nant phrases  in  it  that  are  very  fertile  and  very 
fruitful. 

And  let  us  begin  with  that  first  phrase,  "I 
beseech  you. "  "I  beseech  you,  brethren. "  He 's 
talking  to  Christians,  remember,  and  so  he  says 
"brethren."  When  Paul  says  brethren  he  is  al- 
ways talking  to  Christians.  "I  beseech  you, 
brethren. ' '  And  this  word  beseech  is  one  of  his 
favourite  expressions.  Time  and  again  he  uses 
it.  "I  beseech  you  by  the  gentleness  of  Christ." 
"I  beseech  you  by  the  meekness  of  Christ."  "I 
beseech  thee  for  my  son  Onesimus. "  "I  beseech 
you  to  walk  worthily  of  your  vocation." 

We  usually  think  of  Paul  as  a  great  intel- 
lectual giant,  and  intellectual  people  we  have 
found  out  from  experience  are  as  a  rule  stiff  and 
cold.    But  one  could  not  say  anything  much  fur- 


**ab^  ifUcftering  Uoixb**        tZ9 

ther  from  the  truth  than  to  say  that  Paul  was  cold. 
His  heart  was  big  and  warm  and  tender.  His 
preaching  was  persuasive  and  pleading.  He  did 
not  use  threats  as  much  as  tears.  He  loved  to 
play  on  the  softer  notes.    "I  beseech  you." 

And  the  reason  for  his  beseeching  is  the 
mercies  of  God.  I  am  going  to  call  that  the  driv- 
ing power  of  the  whole  business.  It  is  the  great 
fly-wheei  of  the  Christian  machinery.  We  have 
a  mighty  load  to  lift,  we  have  a  heavy  mass  to 
move.  I  know  we  have,  but  then  here  is  the 
dynamic.  "The  mercies  of  God,"  literally  "the 
compassions  of  God."  In  view  of  all  that  was 
said  in  the  last  eleven  chapters,  the  appeal  is 
made  on  the  basis  of  God's  mercies.  And  the 
word  is  plural,  notice.  Primarily,  of  course,  His 
mercy  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord,  but  more  than 
that,  all  His  mercies,  all  His  works  of  tenderness 
and  pity.  God  wants  us  to  sit  down  and  think 
over  His  mercies  to  us.  The  greatest  argument 
for  consecration  is  the  incomprehensible  mercy 
of  God.  How  Godlike  we  would  be  if  we  only 
realized  how  liberal  He  has  been  with  us.  When 
Mr.  Moody  was  once  reading  the  103rd  Psalm, 
and  came  to  the  verse,  "Bless  the  Lord,  O  my 
soul,  and  forget  not  all  his  benefits,"  he  stopped 
short  in  his  inimitable  way,  "You  can't  re- 
member 'em  all,  of  course,  but  don't  forget 
'em  all.  Kemember  some  of  'em."  Well,  I  try 
to  do  that  sometimes,  but  do  you  know  it's  a 


J40         **  Songs  in  tbe  mtabt" 

great  big  task.  I  never  could  understand  how  a 
Christian  man  could  be  stingy  with  the  Lord. 
Let  me  ask  a  question.  Did  you  ever  sit  down 
for  one  holy  hour  and  just  meditate  on  God's 
goodness  to  you?  Did  you  ever  thank  Him  for 
the  gift  of  sleep?  Did  you  ever  thank  Him  for 
the  gift  of  friends?  Did  you  ever  thank  Him 
for  the  gift  of  reason?  Helen  Keller  says  in 
the  "Story  of  my  Life"  that  a  man  must  be  a 
"near  relative  of  the  nine  ungrateful  lepers  who 
is  not  grateful  for  his  faculties."  Frederick 
Ozanam,  the  great  French  Jurist,  when  warned 
of  his  approaching  death,  wrote  in  his  diary 
these  words:  "Oh  God,  if  Thou  shouldst  chain 
me  to  a  bed  for  the  rest  of  my  life,  it  would  not 
suffice  to  thank  Thee  for  the  days  I  have  lived. 
If  these  words  are  the  last  that  I  shall  ever  write, 
let  them  be  a  hymn  to  Thy  goodness."  I  was 
interested  the  other  day  in  reading  somewhere 
that  the  word  "Hallelujah"  occurs  twenty-four 
times  in  the  Psalms.  "Hallelujah,"  the  Psalm- 
ist says.  "Praise  the  Lord."  My  cup  runneth 
over.  It's  not  only  full;  it's  running  over. 
The  good  Father  keeps  pouring  out  His  blessings 
till  the  water  flows  over.  "I  beseech  you  by  the 
mercies  of  God." 

Then  he  passes  on  to  his  objective,  "that  ye 
present  your  bodies."  The  idea  being  that  the 
mercy  of  God  is  the  driving  power  to  impel  our 
bodies.    "We  are  asked  to  make  a  gift  of  our 


**/lD^  iflicfteriuG  Xlorcb"        Ht 

bodies  because  the  body  is  the  organ  of  all  our 
activities.    It  is  through  the  body  that  we  come 
in  touch  with  the  world.    And  the  Apostle  is 
very  personal.    Your  body,  yours,  yours;  that 
body  sitting  in  the  pew^ — that  is  the  gift  God 
wants.    Never  mind  brother  Jones'  body;  what 
God  wants  is  your  body.    Make  no  mistake  about 
it,  what  God  asks  is  these  bodies  of  ours.    Those 
hands,  for  instance !    How  many  times  this  past 
summer  did  you  use  those  hands  for  the  Lord? 
The  Apostle  tells  us  that  he  wrote  the  letter  to 
the  Galatians  with  his  own  hands.    Did  you 
ever  write  a  letter  for  the  Lord  with  your  own 
hands?    You  have  written  a  good  many  letters 
in  your  life.    Did  you  ever  write  one  for  the 
Lord  ?    Did  you  ever  send  a  note  to  a  person  in 
trouble  and  tell  them  of  the  goodness  of  the 
Lord?    Samuel  Rutherford's  wonderful  letters 
were  all  written,  he  tells  us,  for  the  Lord — so 
likewise  McCheyne's  and  John  Wesley's  and 
Mandel  Creighton's.    Or  take  those  feet  of  yours. 
Have  you  given  them  to  God?    It  is  said  that  the 
average  man  walks  about  five  miles  in  the  run  of 
a  day ;  that  counts  up  to  a  little  more  than  eight- 
een hundred  miles  a  year.    Have  you  ever  gone 
out  purposely  and  deliberately  and  walked  a  mile 
for  the  glory  of  God  ?    There  is  a  little  book  called 
"The  Penny  Philanthropist."    It  is  the  stoiy 
of  an  Irish  girl  whose  parents  died  and  left  her 
with  a  younger  sister  and  brother  to  support. 


142  **  Songs  in  tbe  Biabt 


She  reads  in  the  papers  of  the  millionaire 
philanthropists  giving  their  millions.  So  she 
decides  that  she  will  be  a  philanthropist  too — a 
penny  philanthropist.  She  will  give  away  a 
penny  of  her  savings  every  day.  So  she  starts 
out  to  sell  newspapers  on  Halsted  Street,  Chicago. 
She  walks  up  and  down  that  great  thoroughfare 
which  is  more  than  twenty  miles  long.  And 
every  day  she  gives  away  her  penny,  mostly  in 
tracts.  And  what  is  the  result  ?  Why,  she  saves 
one  girl  from  suicide,  she  saves  dozens  from 
drink.  She  makes  her  penny  work  wonders. 
Perfectly  marvellous  what  a  penny  will  do  when 
it  is  anointed. 

And  so  we  miglit  go  on.  What  God  wants  is 
our  bodies — our  hands,  our  feet,  our  lips,  our 
hearts,  our  voices.  Oh,  if  men  and  women  would 
just  give  God  their  bodies.  Why,  I  believe  we 
could  send  the  Gospel  to  every  corner  of  this  old 
world  in  five  years  if  Christians  would  just  give 
the  Lord  their  bodies.  There  is  more  than  a 
grain  of  truth  in  the  remark  that  some  one  has 
made  that  if  we  were  as  weak  physically  as  most 
of  us  are  spiritually,  we  would  not  be  able  to 
walk.  When  young  Wendell  Phillips  went  to 
hear  Lyman  Beecher  preach,  he  came  home  and 
threw  himself  on  the  floor  and  prayed:  "0  God, 
I  belong  to  Thee,  take  what  is  Thine  own.  I  ask 
this,  that  whatever  is  wrong  may  have  no 
power  of  temptation  over  me;  and  that  what- 


"/ID^  jflicfterlnQ  Uorcb'*        J43 

ever  is  right  I  may  have  the  courage  to  do  it. 
Amen. ' ' 

I  like  to  think  that  the  Apostles  on  the  Sea  of 
Galilee  were  living  a  healthy  outdoor  life,  rough- 
ing it,  as  we  say,  toughening  their  muscles  with 
the  oars  in  order  to  lay  up  a  store  of  physical 
energy  which  in  future  days  was  to  be  used  in 
carrying  the  cross  of  Jesus  throughout  the  world. 
I  like  to  think  of  John  Williams  trained  as  a 
blacksmith,  and  so  equipped  to  endure  hardness 
as  a  good  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  terrible 
hardships  of  the  South  Seas.  When  he  was 
working  there  at  the  forge,  God  was  fitting  him 
for  his  great  career.  I  like  to  think  of  Keith 
Falconer  training  himself  to  be  the  finest  amateur 
cyclist  in  England,  because  he  had  set  his  mind 
on  getting  a  body  that  would  serve  him  when  he 
went  out  to  Arabia  as  a  missionary.  I  like  to 
think  of  Charlie  Studd  and  Stanley  Smith,  who 
laboured  so  hard  at  cricket  and  rowing  in  order 
to  make  their  bodies  tough  to  stand  the  hard, 
strenuous  work  of  China.  And  it  is  to  this 
glorious  priesthood  of  service  that  we  are  all 
predestined.  We  are  not  called  to  go  on  some 
thrilling  crusade  to  the  holy  places  of  Bible  his- 
tory. We  are  not  called  to  leave  the  busy  haunts 
of  men  and  spend  our  days  in  conventual  re- 
tirement. We  are  simply  asked  to  dedicate 
every  skill  of  hand,  every  power  of  body, 
every  gift  of  mind  in  the  daily  sacrament  of 


J44         ♦'Songs  in  tbe  IFliabt*' 

common  things.  The  vessels  of  the  temple  of 
the  Lord  are  meant  for  service,  not  for  bric-a- 
brac;  we  have  entirely  too  much  bric-a-brac  al- 
ready. We  have  too  much  ornamental  filigree  in 
our  churches.  What  the  Lord  wants  is  useful 
furniture,  furniture  that  can  be  used.  Do  not 
put  the  Master  in  the  parlour;  take  Him  down 
into  the  kitchen;  make  Him  one  of  the  family 
circle. 

And  this  will  be  seen  more  clearly  if  we  look 
at  the  next  phrase — "a.  living  sacrifice."  The 
old  sacrifices  were  dead.  The  victim  was  dragged 
dead  to  the  altar.  It  was  a  dead  bull  or  a  dead 
ox  or  a  dead  goat.  But  we  are  asked  to  bring 
our  bodies  alive  and  offer  them  up  as  a  living 
oblation.  Some  years  ago  General  Nogi  of 
Japan  took  his  life  to  show  his  devotion  to  the 
Emperor.  But  our  great  Emperor  does  not  ask 
us  to  do  that.  We  are  not  bidden  to  cut  any 
jugular  vein  and  let  the  red  tide  gurgle  out. 
That  is  not  the  idea  conveyed  in  the  word  sacri- 
fice at  all.  The  word  sacrifice  means  dedicating 
to  God.  When  in  all  the  actions  of  my  life  I  am 
doing  everything  in  absolute  conformity  to  the 
Will  of  God,  then  I  am  making  a  sacrifice.  A 
Christian  is  not  an  amputated  man!  He  is  not 
a  mutilated  man.  He  is  a  dedicated  man.  It  is 
easy  to  slay  a  bullock  or  offer  one  hundred  rams, 
but  it  is  not  easy  to  slay  self  and  rise  into  the 
calm  glory  of  the  surrendered  life.    "I  have 


been  crucified  with  Christ,"  says  the  Apostle. 
Crucified  yet  living! 

Suppose  I  were  to  preach  this  morning  merely 
to  put  in  the  time  and  fulfill  an  appointment; 
that  would  be  a  dead  sacrifice,  a  mere  mechan- 
ical performance.  Suppose  I  come  to  church 
out  of  sheer  habit  or  to  please  my  family — 
it  is  a  mere  perfunctory  thing — a  dead  sacrifice. 
Suppose  I  give  grudgingly  and  out  of  compul- 
sion. Where  is  the  dedication  ?  The  Church  of 
Christ  is  in  no  great  need  of  money  to-day,  but 
she  is  desperately  and  shamefully  in  need  of 
"money  with  the  red  streak  of  sacrifice  on  it." 
The  Jews  were  forbidden  to  offer  anything  that 
was  lame  or  blind  or  deformed.  In  like  manner 
we  are  bidden  to  give  our  best,  not  the  feebleness 
of  sickness  or  the  tottering  decrepitude  of  age, 
but  our  youth,  our  health,  our  virility,  our  vigour, 
our  very  best.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  believe 
that  God  ever  asks  any  child  of  His  to  cut  off 
his  right  hand  or  pull  out  his  right  eye  literally. 
There  is  profanity  all  about  us,  but  we  are  not 
asked  to  pierce  our  ear-drums  so  that  we  may 
not  hear  it.  There  is  ugliness  and  uncleanness 
on  all  sides,  but  God  does  not  ask  us  to  go  blind- 
folded so  that  we  may  not  see  it.  The  body  is 
the  manifestation  of  the  inner  life,  and  when  the 
body  is  obedient  then  the  soul  will  be  obedient 
too.     The  soul  works  through  the  body. 

And  then  finally  that  last  phrase,  ''which  is 


J46  '"Songs  in  tbe  tMQbt** 

your  reasonable  service."  Reasonable!  pertain- 
ing to  the  reason,  the  service  of  one's  reason. 
The  Greek  word  used  is  our  word  logical.  It  is 
the  logical  thing  for  a  man  to  give  God  his  body 
because  He  made  it  and  He  has  a  right  to  it. 
God  never  besought  a  child  of  His  to  do  an 
unreasonable  thing. 

Think  of  the  false  religions  of  the  world. 
Think  of  men  bowing  down  to  crocodiles  and 
reptiles.  Think  of  little  children  being  offered 
up  by  their  mothers  in  fire  and  water  to  pro- 
pitiate their  gods.  Think  of  all  the  wooden 
images  set  up  to  serve  as  a  protection  against 
pestilence  and  plague  and  death.  The  poets 
said  of  Saturn  that  he  would  eat  his  children  as 
quickly  as  they  were  born.  Now  if  one  were 
to  recommend  to  us  the  sacrifice  of  Saturn  it 
would  not  be  a  reasonable  thing.  The  Brahmin 
goes  into  his  temple  to  kneel  before  his  god. 
It  is  a  very  ancient  worship.  He  brings  his 
chicken  and  his  rice  and  lays  his  offering  down. 
There  the  idol  sit«  in  his  stolid  ivory  white- 
ness, and  one  is  struck  with  the  earnest  de- 
votion he  sees,  but  he  cannot  help  feeling  that 
it  is  not  a  reasonable  performance.  Over  in 
China  they  put  a  prayer  on  a  prayer  wheel,  and 
then  they  think  they  have  prayed  as  many  times 
as  the  wheel  has  revolved.  The  whole  thing 
lacks  not  only  the  element  of  spirituality;  it 
lacks  the  element  of  reason. 


**^V  3flicfterin0  JLovch**         J47 

There  is  just  one  thing  more  that  I  would  like 
to  refer  to.  Sometimes  we  hear  the  expression 
used  "divine  service."  Are  you  going  to  divine 
service  this  morning?  In  our  church  notices  you 
will  see  the  announcement,  "divine  service  at 
eleven  o'clock."  I  think  it  was  Mr.  Moody  who 
once  said,  "I  do  not  know  what  right  we  have  to 
call  the  hour  of  worship  divine  service."  It  is 
beautiful ;  it  is  helpful ;  I  believe  it  is  essential ;  I 
believe  that  when  people  give  it  up  they  deterio- 
rate. ' '  I  love  thy  Church,  0  God, ' '  and  I  should 
be  one  of  the  last  to  speak  a  syllable  against  the 
glorious  exercises  of  the  sanctuary.  But,  all  the 
same,  the  great  preacher  was  right,  these  things 
are  not  divine  service.  Preaching  and  praying 
and  singing  hymns  are  not  primarily  serving 
God.  They  are  a  preparation  for  serving  God, 
that  is  all.  Coming  to  the  Lord's  table  is  not 
religion.  It  is  an  aid  to  religion.  Religion  is 
loving  God;  religion  is  walking  with  God;  re- 
ligion is  trying  to  do  the  will  of  God ;  religion  is 
helping  the  widow;  religion  is  being  brave  in 
sorrow;  religion  is  keeping  oneself  unspotted 
from  the  world.  Not  infrequently  ministers  of  the 
Gospel  are  called  * '  divines. ' '  Certainly  not  a  few 
ambassadors  of  the  Master  have  no  desire  to  be 
called  divines.  They  would  much  rather  be 
called  humans  than  divines.  The  trouble  with 
too  many  of  us  is  that  we  are  not  human  enough. 
The  thing  that  counts  is  not  our  creed  but  our 


J48         ♦'Songs  in  tbe  miQbt" 

life.  The  thing  that  matters  is  our  living  service 
to  our  fellow  men  and  a  living  service  is  a  loving 
service.  One  may  believe  in  the  resurrection  of 
the  body  with  every  power  of  his  being,  and  yet 
never  present  as  a  sacrifice  his  own  body.  But 
it  is  his  own  body  that  God  wants  first.  We 
must  give  ourselves  to  Him  before  He  will  give 
Himself  to  us.  It  is  not  the  work  that  we  do 
that  is  the  important  thing,  but  the  consecration 
of  that  work,  the  moral  colour  thrown  over  it. 
I  heard  the  story  of  a  soldier  who  said,  "I  of- 
fered my  life  to  France  and  all  she  took  was  my 
arms."  He  had  found  the  secret.  What  God 
wants  is  the  will  to  surrender.  The  Apostle 
says,  ''For  me  to  live  is  Christ."  As  I  under- 
stand it,  he  means  that  for  me  to  live  is  to  do 
the  will  of  Christ.  When  a  man  is  ready  to 
say:  Jesus  Christ  has  no  hands  or  feet  in  this 
world,  I  will  give  Him  mine.  He  has  no  eyes, 
I  will  give  Him  mine.  He  has  no  tongue,  I  will 
give  Him  mine.  I  will  give  Him  my  body  to 
use  as  seemeth  wise  to  Him,  then  that  man  has 
learned  the  true  meaning  of  consecration. 

"  O  Light  that  followed  all  my  way, 
I  yield  my  flickering  torch  to  Thee; 
My  heart  restores  its  borrowed  ray, 
That  in  Thy  sunshine's  blaze  its  day 
May  brighter,  fairer  be." 


"AWAKE  MY  SOUL,  STRETCH  EVERY 
NERVE" 

**Let  us  run  with  patience  the  race  set  he- 
fore  us." — Hebrews  12: 1, 

IFE  is  a  race;  it  is  not  a  play- 
ground nor  a  pleasure  camp ;  it 
is  a  race,  a  long  race,  a  strenu- 
ous race.  And  it  is  a  race  laid 
down  for  us.  We  do  not  choose 
our  field  of  action ;  it  is  not  my 
race  nor  your  race.  It  is  the  race  set  before  us. 
Each  one's  track  is  marked  out  for  him.  Each 
has  his  own  equipment,  his  own  arena.  We  have 
all  to  toe  the  scratch,  press  on  in  our  own  par- 
ticular stretch,  leap  our  own  barriers,  cross  our 
own  muddy  marshes  and  deep  rivers,  climb  our 
o^vn  steep  hills,  and  at  last  pass  tired  and  pant- 
ing under  the  tape  when  the  Judge  smiles  on  us 
with  His  well  done  and  welcoming  approval. 

No  doubt  the  writer  of  these  words  has  in  mind 
the  Grecian  games,  which  were  annual  competi- 
tions, and  in  which  racing  formed  a  prominent 
feature.  Not  unlikely  he  had  been  present  him- 
self at  many  of  these  memorable  gatherings. 
They  drew  together  a  vast  crowd  of  spectators, 
149 


J50         **  songs  in  tbe  migbt" 

perhaps  forty  or  fifty  thousand,  from  all  parts 
of  the  Isthmus.  The  white  marble  seats  rose  tier 
above  tier,  from  which  could  be  surveyed  the 
level  field,  the  strained  muscles,  the  passionate 
eagerness,  the  judges  conferring  on  the  success- 
ful the  garlands  of  pine  or  olive,  the  glad,  happy 
faces,  the  hearty  congratulations,  the  rending 
applause.  It  is  all  a  very  vivid,  a  very  thrilling 
picture. 

And  on  this  familiar  scene  the  Apostle  founds 
high  moral  lessons.  He  lifts  the  picture  into 
the  realm  of  the  spiritual.  We  are  all  in  the 
stadium,  he  says;  we  are  all  surrounded  by  a 
great  crowd  of  spectators: 

"  From  the  battlements  of  glory 
Holy  ones  are  looking  down. 
Thou  canst  almost  hear  them  shouting." 

There  is  a  great  company  of  sainted  veterans  up 
there  who  understand  all  about  our  troubles,  who 
have  fought  where  we  fight,  who  have  wept  where 
we  weep,  and  who  are  looking  down  with 
heavenly  interest  upon  the  race  in  which  we  are 
competitors  now.  They  are  in  the  galleries,  but 
only  a  little  while  ago  they  were  in  the  arena. 
They  ran  their  race  well,  and  now  they  have 
gone  out  of  the  arena  into  the  galleries. 

In  the  previous  chapter  the  Apostle  calls  up 
a  list  of  names  from  this  golden  roll  of  the 
faithful.    "These  all  died  in  faith,"  he  com- 


**Stretcb  Ever?  •nerpc"        j5J 

ments.  In  the  verse  of  our  text  he  characterizes 
them  as  a  great  cloud  of  witnesses.  Indeed  the 
word  he  uses  is  the  word  martyr;  it  will  be  re- 
membered that  the  word  martyr  has  changed 
its  meaning.  It  was  not  necessary  in  these  days 
that  a  man  should  actually  suffer  in  order  to  be 
a  martyr.  Sometimes  he  did  suffer,  sometimes 
he  did  not.  Indeed,  strictly  speaking,  it  is  not 
necessarj^  to-day  to  suffer  to  be  a  martyr.  Suf- 
fering never  made  a  saint  a  martyr.  Death 
never  made  a  child  of  God  a  martyr.  If  a  fol- 
lower of  the  Master  is  not  a  martyr  before  his 
death  he  is  not  likely  to  be  after  his  death.  A 
martyr  in  these  early  times  was  one  who  went 
before  kings  and  councils  with  a  willingness  to 
endure  affliction  if  need  be.  Oftentimes  he  did 
not  suffer  at  all,  but  he  bore  witness,  that's  the 
point.  A  martyr  is  one  who  bears  testimony 
to  the  truth. 

Now  to  come  back  to  this  figure  of  the  race. 
We  all  know  there  are  certain  conditions  indis- 
pensable to  the  winning  of  a  race.  No  com- 
petitor for  a  Marathon  prize  to-day  would  have 
the  smallest  chance  of  success  who  did  not  fulfill 
these  conditions.  Let  us  note  what  these  condi- 
tions are.  The  interesting  thing  is  they  are  all 
mentioned  in  our  text. 

I.  He  must  first  of  all  put  himself  in  train- 
ing. He  must  go  into  a  gymnasium  and  work 
hard  for  hours  every  day  in  order  to  qualify. 


J52  *•  songs  tn  tbe  IKliabt*' 

He  must  take  off  all  surplus  fat  and  have  his 
muscles  hardened.  Every  ounce  tells.  In  run- 
ning, everything  not  a  help  is  a  hindrance.  If 
a  thing  does  not  assist  in  carrying,  but  itself 
needs  to  be  carried,  then  it  is  in  the  way.  He 
must  watch  carefully  what  he  eats  and  drinks. 
He  must  cultivate  temperance  and  chastity. 
These  old  Greek  athletes  went  down  into  the 
training  camp  for  months  and  denied  themselves 
of  every  luxury.  And  surely  not  otherwise  is  it 
with  the  Christian.  He  must  needs  put  his  body 
in  subjection.  He  must  mortify  his  body;  he 
must  subdue  his  carnal  nature.  He  is  called  upon 
to  crucify  the  flesh  with  its  affections  and  lusts. 
He  is  to  lay  aside  every  weight. 

And  what  is  a  weight  ?  A  weight  is  an  incum- 
brance. Anything  that  impedes  action  is  a 
weight,  A  weight  is  not  necessarily  a  sin.  In- 
deed it  is  worth  observing  that  weights  in  this 
verse  are  distinguished  from  sins,  A  weight  in 
itself  may  be  perfectly  innocent  and  permissible. 
It  may  be  quite  legitimate  in  its  place.  A  thing 
may  be  a  good  thing  and  yet  be  a  weight.  Some 
things  indispensable  in  the  home  become  absurd- 
ities in  the  trenches.  The  world  laughs  at  the 
soldier  who  goes  to  war  in  full  dress.  One  of 
the  criticisms  of  the  Boer  war  was  that  some  of 
the  officers  had  pianos  in  their  camps.  Refine- 
ment is  all  right  but  we  want  it  in  the  drawing- 
room,  not  on  the  battle-field.    A  soldier,  like  a 


**Stvetcb  JEperg  IRerve**        J53 

war-ship,  must  be  stripped  for  action.  And  the 
thought  that  the  Apostle  is  trying  to  make  clear 
is  that  the  runner,  too,  must  discard  every  non- 
essential. Kaces  are  usually  close.  One-half  a 
second  may  decide  the  contest,  and  when  the 
fraction  of  a  second  is  so  important,  every  rag 
of  needless  livery  must  be  cast  aside. 

A  weight,  let  us  repeat,  may  be  right  in  itself, 
but  if  it  becomes  a  hindrance  to  our  effectiveness, 
then  it  is  wrong.  A  great  preacher  has  said  that 
he  believes  more  souls  are  lost  by  things  right  in 
themselves,  than  by  things  wrong  in  themselves. 
The  Bible  bids  us  be  diligent  in  business,  but 
there  are  men  all  about  us  who  are  losing  their 
spiritual  vision  every  day,  from  being  diligent  in 
business.  Do  you  ask  what  things  may  become 
weights?  Well,  one  simple  word  answers  that. 
Everything!  It  is  a  strange,  mysterious  power 
that  we  all  possess,  of  perverting  our  highest 
gifts  into  the  instruments  of  our  own  hurt. 
Just  as  the  chemist  can  distill  poison  out  of 
God's  fairest  flowers,  so  we  can  pervert  every- 
thing we  touch  into  tools  for  our  own  de- 
struction. 

The  question  is  frequently  asked — Is  it  wrong 
to  do  this  ?  Is  it  wrong  to  do  that  ?  Is  it  wrong 
to  drink  wine  ?  Is  it  wrong  to  play  golf  on  Sun- 
day? Our  answer  is,  it  is  wrong  to  do  anything 
that  may  prove  a  weight. 

There  are  some  practices  that  help  us  in  the 


J54         ''Songs  in  tbe  Ifttabt** 

Christian  race,  and  there  are  some  that  lower 
our  vitality,  and  leave  us  fagged  and  listless. 
You  cannot  always  be  sure  what  is  a  weight  to 
me,  nor  can  I  always  be  certain  what  encumbers 
you.  Indeed  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  same 
thing  may  be  an  incentive  to  one  man  and  a 
drag  to  another.  Sometimes  railroad  men  take 
a  special  train  to  hurry  them  to  a  certain  place, 
and  you  wiU  see  the  locomotive  dashing  across 
the  rails  with  two  or  three  cars  attached.  If 
you  ask  why  so  many  cars  are  needed  to  carry 
a  single  passenger,  you  wiU  be  told  that  it  is  to 
balance  the  engine  and  keep  it  from  flying  off 
the  track.  The  cars  in  this  case  are  not  in  any 
wise  a  check  or  an  interference  or  a  weight. 
They  are  a  safeguard.  Nothing  can  be  called 
a  weight  that  keeps  us  on  the  course.  The  ant- 
lers are  not  a  weight  to  the  stag ;  the  wing  is  not 
a  weight  to  the  aeroplane ;  the  sail  is  not  a  weight 
to  the  ship ;  the  propeller  is  not  a  weight  to  the 
ocean  liner.  The  only  way  to  find  out  if  a  thing 
is  a  weight  is  to  run ;  you  cannot  tell  by  stand- 
ing still.  One  needs  to  get  out  of  breath  to  learn 
what  is  burdensome  and  retarding. 

But  we  are  not  only  to  lay  aside  every  weight. 
We  are  also  to  strip  off  the  sin  which  doth  so 
easily  beset  us.  Scholars  tell  us  that  the  word 
here  used  for  easily-besetting  is  nowhere  else 
found  in  Greek  literature,  and  so  its  meaning 
is  uncertain.    The  marginal  reading  in  the  Re- 


"Stretcb  iBvcv^  •fflerpe"         i55 

vised  Version  is,  "the  sin  which  doth  closely 
cling  to  us."  The  modern  speech  New  Testa- 
ment rendering  is,  **the  sin  which  doth  so  clev- 
erly entangle  us."  Others  claim  that  the 
Apostle  is  speaking  of  sin  generically;  it  being 
the  characteristic  of  every  kind  of  sin  that  it  is 
always  Ijing  in  wait  and  lurking  for  us.  Sin 
is  a  beast  of  prey  crouching  at  the  door. 

Personally,  however,  I  must  say  I  like  the  old 
phrase  ' '  our  besetting  sins. ' '  "We  all  have  them. 
No  one  is  exempt;  the  reference  being  to  the 
closely  fitting  garment  that  the  athlete  wore  just 
as  at  the  present  time  all  athletes  wear  skin-tight 
clothing.  Let  us  lay  aside  every  weight  and  the 
sin  that  lies  closest  to  the  heart.  Every  one  of  us 
has  some  pet  sin  that  lies  close  to  his  heart,  and 
if  there  is  one  thing  more  than  another  that  will 
handicap  the  runner  and  trip  him,  it  is  to  have 
some  besetting  sin.  "What  is  the  matter  with 
that  vessel  out  yonder  in  the  bay?"  said  one 
gentleman  to  another  as  thqy  stood  watching  her 
from  the  shore;  "she  has  her  sails  all  set;  she 
has  a  strong  wind  in  her  favour,  but  she  is  not 
making  any  progress."  "What's  the  matter? 
Why,  sir,  she's  anchored."  I  wonder  if  any  of 
us  are  anchored,  anchored  to  the  world,  anchored 
to  strong  drink,  anchored  to  some  besetting  sin  ? 
You  must  part  with  that  darling  sin  or  part  with 
Jesus  Christ.  Millions  of  men  would  be  saved 
but  for  one  sin,  the  miser  but  for  his  gold,  the 


t56         **BonQ5  in  tbe  IRigbt" 

drunkard  but  for  his  drink,  the  unclean  man 
but  for  his  lust.  Therefore,  as  you  love  your 
life,  enter  the  dark  cavern  of  your  heart,  face  the 
lion  that  lies  lurking  there,  slay  that  lion,  give  it 
one  fatal  blow  with  all  the  gathered  forces  of 
your  life.  Fling  out  of  its  lair  the  unclean  thing 
and  turn  the  cavern  into  a  pure  and  holy  temple 
where  Jesus  Christ  can  enter  and  abide. 

II.  The  second  essential  to  the  successful 
runner  is  earnestness.  ''Let  us  run  with 
patience, "  i.  e.,  with  Endurance.  Moses  endured 
as  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible;  it  is  the  same 
word.  "Jesus  Christ  endured  the  cross  despis- 
ing the  shame : ' '  same  word  again.  You  young 
men  know  how  necessary  it  is  to  keep  up  your 
courage  in  a  race. 

Sometimes  you  see  a  runner  dashing  ahead 
amid  the  cheers  of  the  crowd  only  in  a  little 
while  to  grow  tired  and  faint,  then  falter  and 
flag,  and  eventually  drop  into  the  rear,  while  a 
steadier  man  shoots  ahead  and  wins  the  prize. 
To  hold  out  when  others  are  wavering  is  often 
the  secret  of  victory.  It  is  not  always  the  person 
who  takes  the  lead  at  the  start  who  is  in  the  front 
at  the  finish.  It  is  staying  power  that  tells.  It 
is  the  man  who  sets  the  pace  and  keeps  it  that 
gets  there.  The  unsteady  runner  soon  drops  be- 
hind.    Spurts  do  not  win  races. 

Alas,  we  have  so  many  spurters  in  the  Chris- 
tian arena.    They  are  not  dead  in  earnest.    They 


*'Stretcb  JBvcvs  t\cv\>c**        J57 

are  simply  playing  at  the  game.  There  are  some 
fine  sprinters  in  the  Church  but  they  are  not  the 
strength  of  the  Church.  "Why,  some  boys  take 
more  time  learning  to  whistle  than  many  fol- 
lowers of  the  Lord  do  in  trying  to  become  strong 
runners  for  the  prize  that  is  eternal.  I  was  read- 
ing last  summer  an  account  of  a  famous  dancer. 
She  said  she  began  training  at  the  tender  age  of 
five  and  until  young  womanhood  she  practiced 
eight  hours  a  day.  When  a  famous  violinist  was 
once  asked  how  long  it  took  him  to  master  the 
instrument,  he  replied  twelve  hours  a  day  for 
twenty  years.  Pliny  tells  us  that  Apelles  never 
let  a  day  pass  without  his  drawing  something 
with  his  pencil.  "Always  room  at  the  top, "  they 
say,  yes,  but  as  President  Jordan  adds,  ''the 
elevator  is  not  running."  We  must  struggle; 
we  must  buckle  to.  You  cannot  raise  an  eagle 
in  eiderdown.  And  if  "getting  on"  in  life  is 
hard  who  says  that  "getting  up"  is  easy? 
"Strive  to  enter  in  at  the  strait  gate,  for  many, 
I  say  unto  you,  shall  seek  to  enter  in  and  shall 
not  be  able."  These  latter  fail,  note,  and  the 
reason  why  they  fail  is  that  they  do  not  strive; 
they  simply  seek. 

"  The  heights  by  great  men  reached  and  kept 
Were  not  attained  by  sudden  flight; 
But  they,  while  their  companions  slept, 
Were  toiling  upward  in  the  night." 

**I  fight,"  says  the  Apostle,  "not  as  one  that 


J58  **  Songs  In  tbe  IFliabt'* 

beateth  the  air. "  I  do  not  make  empty  flourishes 
at  an  imaginary  foe.  I  am  not  amusing  myself 
in  some  harmless  ' '  make-believe. ' '  I  fight  as  one 
does  for  his  life.  My  enemy  is  myself.  I  bruise 
my  body  and  bring  it  under.  ''I  run,"  he  says 
again,  *'not  as  uncertainly."  He  means  there 
was  no  hesitation,  no  slackening  of  effort,  no  re- 
laxing of  nerves.  He  ran  as  if  he  meant  to 
arrive,  as  if  he  meant  to  attain. 

III.  And  the  last  essential  to  the  successful 
runner  is  to  keep  the  eye  fixed  upon  the  goal. 
He  needs  to  do  that  for  one  thing  in  order  to  run 
as  straight  as  possible.  It  does  not  pay  in  a  race 
to  run  in  a  curved  line.  There  must  be  no  need- 
less loops  in  our  course.  Atlanta  stops  to  pick 
up  the  golden  apple  and  she  is  worsted.  Orpheus 
looked  behind  and  he  was  left.  Our  Lord  Him- 
self said  that  "No  man  having  put  his  hand  to 
the  plough  and  looking  back  is  fit  for  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven." 

Well,  our  goal  is  Jesus.  **  Looking  unto 
Jesus,"  literally  looking  away  unto  Jesus.  We 
must  turn  our  gaze  away  from  everything  and 
fix  our  eyes  upon  our  Lord. 

"Would  you  lose  your  load  of  sin? 
Fix  your  eyes  upon  Jesus." 

When  Sir  Isaac  Newton  was  asked  how  he  worked 
out  different  problems  he  replied.  ''I  keep  them 
steadily  before  me."    We  need  to  keep  Christ 


"Stretcb  Bverp  Mcxvc**        i59 

steadily  before  us.  It  is  not  enough  to  resolve 
vaguely  to  try  and  do  what  is  right.  We  must 
determine  to  do  what  is  right  whatever  the  cost. 
We  must  keep  our  eye  on  the  goal.  Jesus  stands 
at  the  finish  holding  out  the  prize.  I  never  was 
much  of  a  shot  but  I  have  watched  good  marks- 
men out  on  the  rifle  range  and  I  used  to  notice 
that  they  always  closed  one  eye,  and  the  reason 
why  they  did  this,  I  was  told,  was  to  shut  out  all 
the  rays  of  light  excepting  those  that  came 
straight  from  the  mark.  If  a  gunner  would  take 
true  aim  he  must  guard  carefully  against  double 
vision.  A  soldier  lay  wounded  on  the  battle- 
field. The  roar  of  the  guns  had  died  away  and 
he  lay  in  the  deadly  stillness  of  its  aftermath. 
The  chaplain  approaching  him  said:  **Is  there 
anything  I  can  do  for  you,  comrade?"  "No, 
nothing,"  said  the  dying  man.  **Just  cover  my 
face  with  my  blanket.  I  want  to  shut  out  every- 
thing but  Jesus. ' ' 

Sometimes  the  question  is  asked  why  the  name 
of  Jesus  is  not  linked  onto  the  roll  of  heroes  in 
the  eleventh  chapter,  and  made  the  climax  of 
that  immortal  company?  Why  is  it  picked  out 
and  placed  on  a  pedestal  all  by  itself  ?  And  the 
answer  clearly  is  that  while  these  noble  heroes 
are  worthy  to  be  our  inspiration  they  are  not 
worthy,  not  one  of  them,  to  be  our  goal.  We  are 
not  to  run  this  race  looking  unto  Abraham. 
Abraham  is  a  splendid  stimulus  but  he  is  not  a 


J60         *"  Songs  in  tbe  IRiabt  ** 

worthy  model.  None  of  us  would  be  satisfied 
to  go  home  singing  "I  want  to  be  like  Abraham." 
We  do  not  want  to  be  like  Abraham  or  Gideon 
or  Barak  or  Samson  or  Jephthah.  We  don't 
want  even  to  be  like  David  or  Paul  or  John.  We 
want  to  be  like  Jesus.  He  is  not  only  the  author ; 
He  is  the  finisher  of  our  faith.  He  does  not 
simply  ask  prominence  in  our  lives ;  He  asks  pre- 
eminence. 

If  one  thing  is  certain  about  Jesus  it  is  that 
He  lived  the  ethics  which  He  taught. 

"  No  mortal  can  with  Him  compare 
Among  the  sons  of  men; 
Fairer  is  He  than  all  the  fair 
That  fill  the  heavenly  train." 

And  now  before  we  part  may  I  ask  a  ques- 
tion ?  How  many  of  you  have  not  yet  started  on 
this  Christian  race?  Don't  you  think  it's  time? 
A  little  boy  came  running  to  a  railway  station 
one  day  just  as  the  train  was  moving  out.  He 
was  tired  and  panting  for  breath.  "Ah,"  said 
the  station  master,  **you  pretty  nearly  caught 
it ;  if  you  had  run  a  little  faster  you  would  have 
been  in  time. "  "  No, ' '  said  the  boy,  *  *  that 's  not 
the  reason.  I  ran  fast  enough!  I  ran  as  fast 
as  I  could.    I  didn't  start  in  time." 

The  time  to  start  is  in  the  morning.  Statistics 
show  that  very  few  start  in  the  evening.  Indeed, 
for  that  matter,  there  are  not  many  entries  even 
in  the  afternoon.    "Remember  now  thy  Creator 


**Stretcb  Bverg  iRerpe**        tet 

in  the  days  of  thy  youth,  ere  the  evil  days  come 
not,  or  the  years  draw  nigh,  when  thou  shalt  say, 
I  have  no  pleasure  in  them."  "Early  let  us 
seek  thy  favour,  early  let  us  do  thy  wiU." 

"  O  Thou,  who  givest  life  and  breath. 
We  seek  Thy  grace  alone, 
In  childhood,  manhood,  age  and  death. 
To  keep  us  still  Thine  own." 


XI 


"FOR  THOSE  IN  PERIL  ON  THE  SEA" 

"They  that  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships, 
and  do  business  in  great  waters,  these  see  the 
works  of  the  Lord  and  his  wonders  in  the 
deep."— Psalm  107 :  23. 


REMEMBER  some  years  ago 
reading  a  story  of  a  ship  that 
left  the  harbour  of  Gloucester  in 
the  early  days  of  Massachusetts. 
She  never  reached  her  haven, 
however,  and  what  became  of 
her  no  one  ever  knew.  The  story  went  on  to  say 
that  one  day,  many  years  later,  some  friends 
were  strolling  along  the  shore,  when  they  saw  a 
vessel  approach  which  they  knew  by  its  sails  and 
outline  to  be  the  very  missing  ship.  It  drew  so 
near  that  every  rope  and  cable  were  plainly 
visible,  and  even  the  faces  of  those  on  board. 
Then  suddenly  the  vision  faded,  the  sails  melted, 
the  hull  disappeared  and  the  spectre  bark  was 
lost. 

And  then  the  writer  went  on  to  apply  the  tale 

to  life.    Such  is  life,  he  said.    Long  years  ago 

we  left  the  land-locked  harbour  of  youth.    We 

cherished  great   dreams,   planned  great  plans, 

162 


**fox  Ubose  in  {peril  on  tbe  Sea"  J63 

risked  great  ventures.  But  to-day  these  dreams 
are  vanished,  these  plans  are  broken  and  our 
fondest  hopes,  many  of  them,  have  sunk  beneath 
the  waves.  For  life  with  each  one  of  us  is  a 
voyage ;  it  is  ' '  a  home  on  the  rolling  deep. ' '  We 
all  go  down  to  the  sea  in  our  little  boats  to  an 
adventure  of  mystery  and  danger.  We  weigh 
anchor  in  the  morning  hopeful  and  happy.  The 
sky  is  blue,  the  air  is  soft,  the  water  is  peaceful. 
We  set  out  on  life's  passage  like  the  sailor  leav- 
ing shore;  we  meet  adversity  like  the  sailor  in 
the  storm;  we  come  into  harbour  like  the  sailor 
entering  port.  It's  all  a  beautiful  allegory. 
Human  life  a  voyage ;  the  human  soul  a  ship ! 

"There's  a  schooner  in  the  offing 
With  her  topsails  shot  with  fire. 
And  my  soul  has  ^one  aboard  her 
For  the  Island  of  Desire. 

"  I  must  forth  again  to-morrow 
And  at  midnight  I  shall  be 
Hull  down  on  the  trail  of  rapture 
In  the  wonder  of  the  sea." 

"They  that  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,"  says 
the  Psalmist,  "these  see  the  works  of  the  Lord 
and  his  wonders  in  the  deep."  The  works  of 
the  Lord  and  His  wonders  in  the  deep!  How 
differently  the  sea  affects  different  people.  Some 
see  in  it  the  power  of  God,  some  His  majesty. 
Some  it  oppresses  with  its  vastness.     To  some  it 


J64         "Songs  in  tbe  IRiGbt" 

speaks  an  unknown  language,  and  they  cry  out, 
* '  What  are  the  wild  waves  saying  ? ' '  The  scien- 
tist thinks  of  the  ten  or  twenty  thousand  species 
of  living  creatures  in  its  depths.  The  geologist 
thinks  of  it  as  a  museum  of  glittering  pearls  and 
buried  treasures;  the  artist  dwells  on  its  ever- 
changing  beauty.  Down  in  the  * '  sunless  retreats 
of  the  ocean"  are  brilliant  masses  of  weed  and 
moss  and  sponge  and  coral.  The  merchant  counts 
on  its  commercial  value;  the  delicate  voyager 
dreads  its  discomforts ;  the  sailor  loves  it,  but  he 
never  forgets  its  treachery.  The  mountains  have 
a  grand  tranquillity,  but  the  sea  you  can  never 
trust. 

"  Others  may  use  the  ocean  as  their  road. 
Only  the  sailor  makes  it  his  abode, 
Whose  ready  sails  with  every  wind  can  fly 
And  make  a  covenant  with  the  inconstant  sky." 

There's  a  good  deal  in  the  Bible  about  the  sea. 
I  sometimes  think  it  is  rather  remarkable  how 
much  there  is  in  it  about  the  sea,  when  we  recall 
the  fact  that  the  Jew  was  not  a  sailor.  The  Jew 
loved  the  mountains  and  the  valleys,  but  he  was 
very  sceptical  about  the  water.  It  was  an  object 
of  dread  to  him.  There  was  no  "rapture  on  the 
lonely  shore"  for  the  Jew.  Palestine  had  no  real 
ships.  There  is  not  a  harbour  all  along  its  coast 
line.  It  is  true  that  Solomon  had  fleets  on  the 
Red  Sea,  but  these  boats  were  little  more  than 


**fox  Ubose  in  iperil  on  tbe  Sea**   t65 

galleys  propelled  by  oars,  and  most  likely 
manned  by  the  Pbenieians,  for  the  Phenieians 
were  the  mariners  of  that  day.  Even  in  these 
tiny  shells,  however,  they  ventured  as  far  as 
Gibraltar,  and  they  were  bold  navigators  to  do 
that  when  we  consider  that  they  had  no  light- 
house or  chart  to  go  by.  What  wonderful  strides 
have  been  made  in  the  science  of  ship-building 
since  the  days  of  Solomon.  There  is  no  more 
striking  evidence  of  human  skill  than  in  this 
matter  of  ship-building;  in  the  construction  of 
our  ocean  liners,  our  men-of-war,  our  submarines. 
It  was  not  so  very  long  ago  that  our  great  marine 
companies  did  not  hesitate  to  send  out  what  were 
called  "Coffin  ships,"  regardless  of  the  lives  of 
the  men  on  board,  but  this  is  no  longer  tolerated. 
To-day  every  precaution  is  taken  for  the  safety 
of  the  crew.  We  have  rafts,  boats,  life-belts, 
water-tight  compartments.  Nothing  practicable 
is  neglected. 

Now  the  point  I  am  thinking  of  this  morning  is 
this;  that  this  human  life  of  ours  is  a  voyage. 
We  are  always  using  the  ship  as  an  allegory  of 
human  life.  Did  you  ever  consider  how  signifi- 
cant the  metaphor  is  ?  You  recall  these  lines  of 
Masefield: 

"  I  must  go  down  to  the  seas  again. 
To  the  lonely  sea  and  the  sky, 
And  all  I  ask  is  a  tall  ship 
And  a  star  to  steer  her  bjr- 


i66  **  Songs  in  tbe  miabt" 

And  the  wheel's  kick  and  the  wind's  song  and 

the  white  sails  shaking 
And  a  gray  mist  on  the  sea's  face 
And  a  gray  dawn  breaking. 

"  I  must  go  down  to  the  seas  again, 
To  the  vagrant  gypsy  life, 
To  the  gull's  way  and  the  whale's  way, 
Where  the  wind's  like  a  whetted  knife, 
And  all  I  ask  is  a  merry  yarn 
From  a  laughing  fellow  rover. 
And  a  quiet  sleep  and  a  sweet  dream 
When  the  long  trick's  over." 

The  soul  of  a  man,  I  repeat,  is  a  ship.  Let  us 
note  briefly  some  of  the  points  in  common. 

I.  Every  ship  must  have  a  captain.  No  ship 
crosses  the  ocean  without  a  captain.  She  may 
go  without  her  crew  complement,  but  not  without 
her  captain.  She  cannot  be  registered  unless 
she  has  a  captain ;  she  cannot  be  insured  without 
a  captain ;  she  cannot  bring  out  her  bills  of  lad- 
ing until  she  has  a  captain.  She  must  have  a 
master,  a  skipper,  a  commander. 

How  is  it  in  life?  William  Ernest  Henley 
wrote : 

"  It  matters  not  how  strait  the  gate. 
How  charged  with  punis.-ment  the  scroll, 
I  am  the  master  of  my  fate; 
I  am  the  captain  of  my  soul." 

But  is  that  true?  Was  Henley  the  captain  of 
his  soul?  One  thing  is  certain,  it  is  not  true  in 
religion.    I  claim  that  a  Christian  man  is  not 


'  **fot  XTbose  in  peril  on  tbe  Sea"   167 

the  captain  of  his  soul.  If  a  man  is  a  Christian 
man,  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Captain  of  his  soul. 
There  are  authorities  in  literature  and  science 
and  scholarship  whose  verdict  we  accept,  but  in 
religion  there  is  only  one  Man  who  gives  orders 
and  speaks  the  ultimate  word. 

In  my  very  slight  experience  with  great  men 
I  have  always  found  them  humble  and  anxious 
to  learn.  I  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude  I  can  never 
repay  to  Shakespeare  and  Pascal  and  Ruskin  and 
Newman  and  a  long  list  of  inunortals.  There  are 
experts  and  specialists  whose  opinions  I  should  as 
little  think  of  contradicting  as  I  should  think  of 
contradicting  my  New  Testament.  But  in  the 
things  of  the  soul  I  have  only  one  Master.  I  take 
off  my  hat  to  Him.  It  isn't  Luther  or  Calvin 
or  Knox  or  Wesley  or  Augustine.  Teachers, 
rare  teachers  are  they  all,  but  only  as  they  were 
taught.  They  are  really  scholars,  not  masters. 
We  are  all  of  us  under  orders,  if  we  have  sur- 
rendered our  lives  to  Jesus  Christ.  This  hand  is 
not  mine ;  it  is  His.  This  tongue  is  not  mine ;  it 
is  His.  These  lips  are  not  mine;  they  are  His. 
* '  For  ye  are  not  your  own,  ye  are  bought  with  a 
price,  and  one  is  your  Master,  even  Christ. ' ' 

Some  men's  lives  are  like  an  orchestra  before 
the  performance  begins.  Every  instrument  is 
tuning  up;  every  player  strikes  what  note  he 
pleases  and  the  discord  is  very  disturbing.  But 
when  the  conductor  comes  out  and  lifts  his  baton 


J68         **Sonas  in  tbe  naigbt" 

then  all  individual  liberty  ceases.  And  just  so 
it  is  with  our  own  powers  and  faculties  until  the 
soul  surrenders  to  its  true  Master,  and  that 
Master  is  Jesus  Clirist.  From  whatever  angle 
you  approach  the  Galilean  you  are  struck  with 
His  claim  to  mastery.  The  dominant  note  of 
the  man  is  His  authority.  He  speaks  every  time 
in  the  unfaltering  accent  of  one  who  claims  to 
know.  There  is  an  audacity  in  Him  that  is 
sublime.  He  defines  duty;  He  interprets  life; 
He  challenges  death.  His  influence  to-day  is 
the  wonder  of  history.  Kings  of  the  earth  bow 
before  Him.  Astronomy,  biology,  chemistry, 
philosophy  have  made  colossal  strides,  but  Jesus 
stands  where  He  stood  two  thousand  years  ago, 
and  "the  world  is  still  at  His  feet." 

II.  Then  every  ship  must  have  a  cargo.  I 
remember  once  spending  a  day  in  Liverpool  wait- 
ing for  my  steamer  to  sail.  I  had  nothing  par- 
ticular to  do,  so  I  strolled  down  among  the  docks. 
They  are,  as  you  know,  the  largest  docks  in  the 
world,  extending  along  the  river  front  for  eight 
or  ten  miles.  I  saw  one  vessel  loaded  with  cotton 
from  New  Orleans.  I  saw  another  with  wheat 
from  Chicago.  A  third  had  potatoes  from  Nova 
Scotia;  still  another  had  mackerel  from  New- 
foundland. I  was  interested  in  a  barquentine, 
with  her  hatches  all  open,  loading  gravel  and 
clay.  She  had  taken  a  cargo  of  oats  from  Hali- 
fax, and  not  being  able  to  secure  anything  for 


**fov  Xlbose  in  peril  on  tbe  Sea"   i69 

her  homeward  passage  she  had  to  take  on  ballast. 
For  you  know  every  ship  must  carry  something. 
She  must  have  something  down  in  her  hold  to 
steady  her.  If  a  ship  is  empty  she  is  top-heavy, 
and  in  a  storm  to  be  top-heavy  is  disastrous. 
She  must  have,  something  and  if  she  cannot  get 
freight  she  takes  "ballast.  Ballast  is  dead  loss, 
but  some  cargo  she  must  have.  Powder  is  a 
dangerous  cargo;  it  is  apt  to  explode.  Cotton 
is  a  dangerous  cargo ;  it  easily  catches  fire.  Salt 
is  a  dangerous  cargo ;  it  has  a  tendency  to  shift. 
What  is  your  cargo,  my  friend?  What  are  you 
loaded  with?  Whither  are  you  bound?  We 
must  bear  in  mind  that  we  are  all  ships  in  com- 
mission. The  great  Captain  has  a  destination 
for  every  craft.  '  *  They  that  go  down  to  the  sea 
in  ships  and  do  business  in  great  waters. ' '  Busi- 
ness ;  ah  yes,  that 's  it,  and  what  an  indispensable 
business!  In  a  great  world  crisis  like  the  one 
we  have  just  been  passing  through,  the  cargo  of 
every  ship  that  leaves  and  enters  our  ports  is  a 
matter  of  national  concern.  The  Government 
controls  it.  Our  vessels  had  to  be  used  only  in 
the  transportation  of  what  was  absolutely  essen- 
tial. And  should  not  the  analogy  dominate  the 
life  and  purpose  of  every  man  and  woman  ?  How 
about  us?  Are  we  making  the  best  use  possible 
of  our  tonnage?  Do  we  carry  a  cargo  of  light 
and  unnecessary  non-essentials  ?  Is  the  vessel  of 
our  life  employed  upon  the  mission  of  the  King- 


J70         **^onQ5  in  tbe  IKliQbt** 

dom  of  God?  Are  we  weighted  down  with  the 
works  of  the  flesh  or  are  we  laden  with  the  fruits 
of  the  Spirit? 

III.  Then  again  every  ship  must  have  a  com- 
pass and  a  chart.  She  must  have  a  compass  tell- 
ing her  where  the  North  is.  She  must  have  a 
chart  mapping  out  harbour  and  channel  and 
lighthouse  and  bank  and  bar.  She  must  have  a 
rudder.  The  Great  Eastern  was  the  largest  ves- 
sel in  her  day.  She  was  22,000  tons.  She  had 
six  masts.  Once  she  lost  her  rudder  in  mid- 
ocean  and  well-nigh  foundered.  When  Lieu- 
tenant Hobson  steered  the  Merrimac  into  the 
mouth  of  Santiago  Harbour,  his  great  anxiety 
was  to  save  the  steering.  He  almost  succeeded. 
But  at  the  last  moment  one  of  the  Spanish  guns 
turned  its  fire  against  the  stern  and  shot  away 
the  rudder.  That  was  the  vital  spot.  The 
brave  boys  were  helpless.  They  could  not  turn 
her  in  the  channel.  They  just  had  to  do  the  best 
they  could  and  sink  her  where  she  was. 

All  of  which  again  is  an  allegory.  No  ship 
ever  thinks  of  steering  by  her  own  light.  She 
has  a  blue  light  on  her  starboard  bow,  and  a 
green  light  on  the  masthead,  and  a  white  light 
on  her  hurricane  deck,  but  she  does  not  navigate 
by  these.  There  is  a  star  in  the  north  that  guides 
her.  Somehow  or  other  nothing  down  here  on 
earth  seems  to  be  absolutely  trustworthy.  Al- 
ways before  a  ship  leaves  port  her  compass  is 


"3for  XCbose  in  peril  on  tbe  Sea"   i7i 

boxed ;  i.  e.,  it  is  tested  to  see  that  it  is  accurate. 
Each  new  cargo  has  a  tendency  to  deflect  the 
needle.  And  just  so  with  you  and  me.  Con- 
science is  the  compass  of  the  human  ship,  and  it 
is  a  safe  guide,  provided  it  is  regulated  by  the 
Word  of  God.  We  should  bring  our  consciences 
daily  to  the  test  of  Scripture.  The  Bible  is  my 
infallible  chart,  but  it  must  be  interpreted  by  the 
mind  of  Christ.  It  needs  the  illumination  of  the 
Holy  Spirit. 

But  it  is  not  the  captain  or  the  cargo  or  the 
compass  or  the  chart  that  we  are  thinking  about 
particularly  this  morning.  It  is  the  crew  that 
interests  us  just  now.  So  will  you  please  be 
patient  with  me  if  I  say  a  word  in  closing  in 
behalf  of  the  crew?  Whoever  else  we  can  dis- 
pense with  these  days,  one  thing  is  certain,  we 
cannot  do  without  our  sailors.  No  class  of  men 
brings  greater  contribution  to  the  world  to-day. 
Wherever  our  sailor  boys  have  gone,  there  have 
gone  commerce,  freedom,  civilization. 

The  destiny  of  countries  has  been  determined 
very  largely  by  their  coast  lines,  as  is  instanced  in 
the  case  of  Greece  and  England  and  little  Holland. 
Do  you  realize  that  it  was  commerce  that  carried 
the  Bible  out  of  Asia  into  Southern  France  ?  In 
all  history  it  is  the  maritime  cities  like  Tyre  and 
Carthage  and  Venice  and  Genoa  that  have  ruled 
the  world.  The  sea  is  the  chief  bond  of  human 
brotherhood  to-day.   The  farther  you  travel  from 


J72  "Songs  in  tbe  IRiobt*' 

the  sea  the  farther  away  you  go  from  progress 
and  refinement.  Once  the  sea  was  a  dividing 
line,  now  it  is  a  connecting  link.  The  sea  has 
made  all  nations  neighbours.  It  is  the  sea  that 
has  moulded  human  life.  Where  the  sea  cannot 
go  with  its  far-reaching  salty  arms,  there  you 
are  likely  to  have  stagnation  and  death. 

And  we  owe  to  those  sailor  boys  who  brave  its 
dangers  and  drink  in  its  briny  breezes,  more 
than  we  can  ever  repay.  We  are  all  only  too 
apt  to  forget  the  claims  they  have  upon  our  sym- 
pathy. To-day  in  these  great  ocean  greyhounds, 
with  their  palatial  furnishings,  how  few  pas- 
sengers ever  think  of  the  boys  below  who  feed 
the  fires,  or  keep  their  eyes  on  the  lookout  in  the 
hours  of  peril.  Have  we  any  better  friends? 
Without  them  where  would  large  parts  of  our 
earth  be  ?  What  would  large  parts  of  our  earth 
do?  Of  many  places  it  would  be  said,  "There 
arose  a  mighty  famine  in  that  land  and  the  peo- 
ple began  to  be  in  want."  About  twenty  thou- 
sand of  these  brave  fellows  gave  their  lives  dur- 
ing the  past  four  years.  How  many  fathers  and 
mothers  have  been  singing  songs  in  the  night  for 
their  sailor  boys  during  this  awful  war.  How 
often  have  they  watered  their  couch  with  their 
tears  as  they  sobbed : 

"  O  hear  us  when  we  cry  to  Thee 
For  those  in  peril  on  the  sea." 


**jor  XEbose  in  peril  on  tbe  Sea**   J73 

Sonie  weeks  ago  a  great  liner  was  crossing  the 
Atlantic.  She  carried  important  documents  for 
the  Government.  She  was  loaded  with  trans- 
ports returning.  One  day  a  soldier  was  stricken 
down  with  pain.  An  immediate  operation  was 
imperative  to  save  his  life,  but  the  surgeon  said 
he  could  not  risk  the  knife  while  the  vessel  was 
quivering  under  the  hammering  blows  of  her 
great  engines.  So  the  captain  gave  orders  to  stop ; 
and  there  in  mid-ocean  the  great  liner  stood  still 
while  the  surgeon  cut  into  the  flesh  of  the  name- 
less soldier.  That  is  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus. 

The  sailor  is  free,  blunt,  brave,  generous,  off- 
handed, simple-hearted,  genuine.  He  goes  about 
the  world,  ''knocks  about  it,"  as  we  say,  and 
sees  a  good  deal  of  what  is  called  life,  but  un- 
fortunately it  is  often  life  in  its  worst  forms. 
Think  of  the  thousands  of  sailor  boys  ashore  here 
in  New  York  to-day,  walking  up  and  down  our 
water  front.  Think  of  the  temptations  they 
have  to  meet.  The  perils  of  the  deep  are  great, 
but  the  perils  of  the  port  are  greater.  He  is  far 
from  home.  He  has  nothing  to  restrain  him. 
He  has  been  living  a  monotonous  life  on  ship- 
board for  weeks.  He  has  been  cooped  up  in  a 
bunk.  He  is  strong  and  energetic  and  red- 
blooded.  He 's  in  a  strange  city,  unknown,  with 
no  friend  to  counsel  him.  Time  hangs  heavy  on 
his  hands.    He  has  money  in  his  pocket.    The 


J74         *•  Sonos  in  tbe  Iftigbt  ** 

gay  lights  of  Broadway  and  the  luring  voices  of 
loud  women  dazzle  him.  There  are  sharks  wait- 
ing to  grab  his  poeketbook.  Is  it  any  wonder  if 
he  sometimes  falls?  "What  can  we  do  for  these 
poor  fellows?  Well,  he  needs  a  place  to  eat  and 
sleep  and  spend  his  leisure  hours.  He  wants  a 
nice  clean  room  where  there  are  innocent  games, 
.and  paper  and  ink  to  write  a  letter  home.  He 
ought  to  have  wholesome  entertainment  and 
amusement  while  in  port.  He  should  be  pro- 
vided with  good  books. 

And  then  one  thought  more.  What  a  mis- 
sionary he  may  become !  I  doubt  very  much  if 
the  Church  of  God  in  its  missionary  program  has 
a  finer  weapon  of  service  than  the  sailor.  Who 
has  greater  opportunities  of  carrying  the  message 
to  the  regions  beyond?  Think  of  the  leavening 
influence  of  his  life.  Twice  every  twenty-four 
hours  the  tide  sweeps  in.  Gravity  lifts  the  whole 
ocean  bodily  from  the  ground.  It  lifts  it  about 
two  feet  at  the  Equator,  and  about  forty  at  the 
Poles,  and  as  a  result  the  rising  flood  fills  our 
docks,  steals  up  our  rivers,  overflows  our  marshes, 
bringing  health  and  purity  with  it,  and  carry- 
ing away  our  pollution  as  it  turns  and  retreats. 

And  that  is  still  another  parable.  For  there  is 
a  human  tide  going  on  too.  Not  a  day  but  a  great 
wave  of  weather-beaten  salty  sailor  boys  sweeps 
into  our  harbours  and  surges  up  our  streets. 
Every  afternoon  another  wave  of  human  life 


**fov  Ubose  in  iPevU  on  tbe  Sea"   J75 

sweeps  out.  And  tMs  ebb  and  flow  is  going  on 
continuously — thousands  going,  other  thousands 
coming.  What  are  these  lads  bringing  to  us? 
What  are  they  taking  away  ?  Are  they  carrying 
off  germs  of  disease  and  poison  to  other  shores'? 
I  believe  one  secret  of  the  world's  conversion  is 
to  win  the  sailors  for  Jesus  Christ.  The  sailor 
is  a  delegate-at-large  to  all  mankind.  When 
Admiral  Foote  was  dining  with  the  King  of 
Siam,  he  asked  a  blessing  at  the  table.  The 
King  in  surprise  asked  if  the  bronzed  old  sailor 
was  a  missionary.  "Sir,"  answered  the  bluff 
admiral,  ** every  Christian  is  a  missionary."  If 
every  sailor  was  a  missionary  carrying  Christ 
into  all  the  crowded  ports  of  the  earth,  we  should 
have  the  mightiest  evangelistic  agency  the  world 
has  yet  seen.  Our  aim  should  be  to  make  every 
sailor  not  only  a  Christian  but  an  Apostle.  Where 
does  he  not  go  ?  On  what  shore  does  he  not  land  ? 
To  what  port  does  he  not  sail  ?  Ought  we  not  to 
try  and  make  him  an  organ  of  the  truth  as  it  is 
in  Jesus  Christ? 

"  O  Christ,  whose  voice  the  waters  heard 
And  hushed  their  raging  at  Thy  word. 
Who  walkedst  on  the  foaming  deep, 
And  calm  amid  the  storm  didst  sleep; 

O  hear  us  when  we  cry  to  Thee 

For  those  in  peril  on  the  sea." 


XII 


''FAR,  FAR  AWAY  LIKE  BELLS  AT 
EVENING  PEALINC 

"7  call  to  remembrance  my  song  in  the 
night," — Psalm  77 : 6. 


ND  it  certainly  has  been  night 
during  the  past  four  years, 
black  night,  midnight,  not  a 
star  in  the  sky,  not  a  light  on 
the  waves,  not  a  rent  in  the 
gloom.  Never  such  a  night  of 
woe  and  frightfulness  in  the  world  since  time  be- 
gan ;  everything  pitch  dark,  ebon  blackness.  We 
were  all  becoming  very  depressed.  But  at  long 
last  the  dawn  is  approaching.  The  storm  is 
about  over.  The  clouds  are  rolling  away.  There 
is  a  promising  flush  in  the  East.  The  morning 
light  is  breaking.  A  chorus  of  bird-voices  is 
stirring  the  air.  And  there  is  a  note  of  thank- 
fulness and  relief  on  every  tongue.  "Weeping 
may  endure  for  a  night  but  joy  cometh  in  the 
morning. ' ' 

"  Say  not  that  darkness  is  the  doom  of  light. 
That  every  sun  must  sink  in  night's  abyss, 
While  every  golden  day  declines  to  this, 
To  die  and  pass  at  evening  out  of  sight. 
Say  rather  that  the  morning  ends  the  night, 
176 


''Bells  at  Bvening  pealing"     t77 

That  death  must  die  beneath  the  dayspring's 
kiss — 

Whilst  dawn  the  powers  of  darkness  shall 
dismiss. 
And  put  their  dusky  armaments  to  flight. 
Man  measures  life  in  this  wise;  first  the  mom. 

And  secondly  the  noontide's  perfect  prime. 

And  lastly  night,  when  all  things  fade  away: 
But  God,  ere  yet  the  sons  of  men  were  born. 

Showed  forth  a  better  way  of  marking  time — 
"  The  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  day." 

But  the  Psalmist  did  not  have  to  wait  till  the 
morning  for  his  song.  *  *  I  call  to  remembrance,  * ' 
he  says,  "my  song  in  the  night."  It  was  not 
much  of  a  song,  but  he  recalled  it.  He  sang  it 
with  trembling  voice  and  quavering  note.  The 
night  had  been  indescribably  dreadful.  He 
could  never  forget  the  night.  It  was  one  of 
those  nights  that  leaves  behind  it  a  trail  of  terror. 
Some  overwhelming  trouble  had  pounced  down 
on  him  and  prostrated  him  and  rendered  him 
speechless.  And  yet  here  was  the  blessed  wonder 
of  it.  Although  the  blow  had  fallen  and  every- 
thing about  was  black  and  the  earth  trembled 
and  shook,  yet  there  forced  itself  into  the  Psalm- 
ist's heart,  in  some  strange  way,  a  hint  of  the 
goodness  of  the  Lord,  and  all  at  once  he  began 
to  hum  a  hymn  of  praise. 

The  Greeks,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  a  myth 
in  regard  to  the  statue  of  Memnon.  Memnon 
was  one  of  the  brave  heroes  of  the  Trojan  war. 


J78         **  Songs  in  tbe  niQbt** 

He  was  slain  by  Achilles.  A  beautiful  statue 
was  erected  to  his  memory  at  Thebes  on  the  banks 
of  the  Nile.  It  was  called  ' '  the  vocal  Memnon, ' ' 
because  the  statue  when  touched  by  the  first 
rays  of  the  rising  sun  broke  into  music.  And 
just  so  this  human  heart  of  ours  when  touched 
by  sorrow  oftentimes  breaks  every  law  of  nature 
and  bursts  into  singing.  It  was  out  of  the  dark- 
ness of  Bedford  Jail  that  Bunyan's  immortal 
allegory  came.  It  was  out  of  the  darkness  of 
Wartburg  Castle  that  Luther  sent  forth  his 
translation  of  the  Bible.  So  often  in  life  it  is 
the  night  that  makes  the  song. 

I  have  read  somewhere  of  a  little  bird  that  will 
never  sing  the  melody  his  master  wishes  while 
his  cage  is  full  of  light.  He  learns  a  snatch  of 
this,  a  bar  of  that,  a  polyglot  of  something  else, 
but  never  an  entire  movement  of  its  own,  until 
the  cage  is  covered  and  the  morning  beams  shut 
out.  Something  like  this  is  the  soul's  experi- 
ence. A  good  many  people  never  learn  to  sing 
until  the  darkling  shadows  fall.  The  fabled 
nightingale  carols  with  his  breast  against  a 
thorn.  It  was  in  the  night  that  the  song  of  the 
angels  was  heard.  It  was  at  midnight  that  the 
cry  came,  *' Behold  the  Bridegroom  cometh,  go 
ye  out  to  meet  him."  Indeed  it  is  extremely 
doubtful  if  a  soul  can  really  know  the  love  of 
God  in  its  richness  and  in  its  comforting,  satis- 
fying completeness  until  the  skies  are  black  and 


** Bells  at  Evening  pealing"     J79 

lowering.    Light  comes  out  of  darkness,  morn- 
ing out  of  the  womb  of  night. 

James  Creelman  in  one  of  his  letters  describes 
his  trip  through  the  Balkan  States  in  search  of 
Natalie,  the  exiled  Queen  of  Serbia.  "In  that 
memorable  journey,"  he  says,  "I  learned  for  the 
first  time  that  the  world's  supply  of  attar  of 
roses  comes  from  the  Balkan  mountains.  And 
the  thing  that  interested  me  most, ' '  he  goes  on, 
'  *  is  that  the  roses  must  be  gathered  in  the  darkest 
hours.  They  start  out  at  one  o'clock  and  finish 
picking  them  at  two.  At  first  it  seemed  to  me  a 
relic  of  superstition,  but  I  investigated  the 
picturesque  mystery  and  I  learned  that  actual 
scientific  tests  had  proven  that  fully  forty  per 
cent,  of  the  fragrance  of  roses  disappeared  in 
the  light  of  day."  And  in  human  life  and 
human  culture  that  is  not  a  playful,  fanciful 
conceit ;  it  is  real  veritable  fact.  Take  the  case 
of  our  own  Sydney  Lanier.  He  was  born  in  the 
South  before  the  war.  He  had  a  passion  for 
music  and  literature.  Just  as  he  graduated  from 
college  the  war  broke  out  and  he  enlisted.  Then 
after  it  was  over  he  started  in  to  study  law. 
But  the  thirst  for  music  and  literature  devoured 
him.  Then  he  contracted  tuberculosis  and  the 
rest  of  his  days  was  a  battle  for  bread.  There 
were  times  when  his  little  family  was  on  tlie 
verge  of  actual  want.  He  fell  on  the  field  of 
life's  battle  just  as  bravely  as  any  soldier  that 


J80         **  Songs  in  tbe  migbt" 

ever  went  over  the  top.  But  don't  call  it  defeat, 
call  it  rather  a  magnificent  and  glorious  victory* 
Listen  to  his  own  words : 

"The  dark  hath  many  dear  avails; 
The  dark  distils  divinest  dews; 
The  dark  is  rich  with  nightingales, 
With  dreams  and  with  the  heavenly  muse. 

"  Of  fret,  of  dark,  of  thorn,  of  chill 
Complain  thou  not  O  heart;  for  these 
Bank  in  the  current  of  the  will 
To  uses  arts  and  charities." 

Now  this  song  of  the  Psalmist,  I  take  it,  is  a 
record  of  a  private  and  personal  experience,  and 
the  inference  that  runs  like  a  thread  throughout 
the  whole  hymn  is  that  just  as  Jehovah  redeemed 
Israel  from  their  bondage  in  Egypt,  so  He  will 
redeem  us  from  every  exile  in  which  we  may  find 
ourselves  in  any  of  life's  Babylons.  The  pierc- 
ing cry  of  individual  grief  is  aU  through  the  in- 
troductory verses.  If  any  particular  public 
calamity  is  referred  to,  it  has  become  a  personal 
pain  and  it  is  symbolic. 

I.  Notice  then  first  of  all  that  it  is  a  Song  of 
Faith,  **I  will  cry  unto  God  with  my  voice," 
the  troubled  man  begins,  "and  he  will  give  ear 
unto  me."  He  approached  the  Lord,  you  will 
observe,  not  in  studied  stilted  phrase  but  with  a 
cry.  Now  that  was  simple  childlike  faith.  "In 
the  day  of  my  trouble  I  sought  the  Lord.  My 
hand  was  stretched  out  to  him."    The  whole 


•Bells  at  Bventng  pealiitQ''     J8i 

horizon  of  the  psalm  is  ominous  and  threatening, 
but  he  felt,  and  indeed  he  knew,  that  God  was 
behind  the  frowning  cloud. 

Some  one  calls  Faith  the  nightingale  among 
the  Christian  graces.  It  can  see  in  the  dark, 
and  what  is  better,  it  can  sing  in  the  dark.  Its 
richest  strains  are  not  infrequently  poured  forth 
in  the  nocturnal  hours.  A  good  many  people 
imagine  that  they  have  no  need  of  faith  in  the 
daytime.  Some  of  us  feel  no  more  need  of 
faith  in  the  daytime  than  of  a  lamp.  We  can 
see  our  path  plainly  and  prefer  to  walk  by  sight. 
It  is  when  darkness  falls  that  we  realize  our 
helplessness.  When  the  disciples  were  on  the 
Sea  of  Galilee  and  a  storm  arose,  they  came  to 
their  sleeping  Master  and  said,  **Carest  thou  not 
that  we  perish?"  But  His  gentle  rebuke  was, 
"How  is  it  that  ye  have  no  faith?" 

Without  faith  we  cannot  see  our  way  in  the 
gloom  and  certainly  without  faith  we  cannot  sing 
our  way.  Nothing  but  faith  will  enable  a  lonely 
pilgrim  to  make  a  joyful  noise  unto  the  Lord 
when  the  heavens  are  like  ink  and  every  light  has 
gone  out.  Faith  is  the  sainted  Goddess  of  holy 
song  and  she  inspires  some  of  her  sweetest  lyrics 
in  the  depths.  When  Paul  and  Silas  were  in  the 
dungeon  at  Philippi  they  lifted  praises  to  God 
at  midnight.  There  is  no  pit  so  deep  and  hope- 
less that  God  cannot  reach  down  and  make  His 
presence  felt. 


J82         **  Songs  in  tbe  mfabf 

"There  is  never  a  day  so  dreary. 
But  God  can  make  it  bright; 
And  unto  the  soul  that  trusts  Him 
He  giveth  songs  in  tlie  night." 

But  it  is  only  to  the  soul  that  trusts  Him  that 
He  gives  the  song.  He  gives  no  song  to  the  soul 
that  doubts  Him.  Doubt  never  sings.  When 
doubt  drops  down  on  the  soul,  song  straightway 
dies  in  the  heart.  Doubt  is  to  the  Christian  pil- 
grim what  fog  is  to  the  mariner.  It  is  a  heavy 
pall.  So  far  the  navigator  has  been  able  to  do 
but  little  to  overcome  the  perils  of  fog.  No  light 
has  yet  been  devised  that  is  able  to  penetrate  for 
any  considerable  distance  the  thick  mist  that  so 
often  clings  around  our  coasts.  Man  is  pretty 
nearly  as  helpless  in  this  matter  of  fog  as  he  was 
five  thousand  years  ago.  It  creates  uncertainty 
and  distrust  and  fear.  And  where  fear  is  song 
cannot  be. 

This  has  been  the  trouble  mth  much  of  our 
theology.  It  is  too  largely  founded  on  fear. 
And  as  a  result  theology  does  not  sing.  Churches 
with  a  hard,  stern  creed  rarely  blossom  into  song. 
Calvinism  as  a  rule  has  never  created  great  song. 
Presbyterianism  has  given  us  fewer  hymns  than 
any  of  the  great  denominations.  To  be  sure 
there  are  exceptions.  Such  men  as  Horatius 
Bonar,  for  instance,  but  it  is  a  well-known  fact 
that  even  his  own  congregation  refused  to  sing 
liis  hymns.    It  was  not  until  the  Church  began  to 


*•  Bells  at  Evenina  pealina*'     I83 

have  nobler  and  worthier  and  kindlier  thoughts 
of  God  that  singing  came  into  its  own.  The 
pimple  fact  is  that  the  great  hymns  of  the  Church 
were  born  of  a  spiritual  experience.  I  am  firmly 
convinced  that  our  religious  inheritance  owes  far 
piore  to  the  poets  than  to  the  theologians.  Who 
lifts  us  the  higher,  John  Wesley,  the  expositor, 
or  Charles  Wesley,  the  singer  1  His  enemies  said 
of  Martin  Luther  that  he  did  far  more  harm  by 
his  hymns  than  by  his  sermons,  and  Coleridge 
once  remarked  that  he  did  as  much  for  the 
Keformation  by  his  songs  as  by  his  translation 
of  the  Bible.  Perhaps  the  "Christian  Year"  of 
John  Keble  has  had  more  readers  than  all  the 
writings  of  the  Oxford  School  put  together.  It 
may  be  that  this  is  the  real  meaning  of  the 
Apocalypse  when  it  describes  the  glories  of 
heaven  in  trumpet  and  minstrel  and  harp. 
Some  one  has  said  that  ''if  the  Church  is  the 
bride  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  the  hymn  book 
is  its  love  story." 

II.  Then  it  was  a  Song  of  Gratitude.  "I 
have  considered  the  days  of  old,"  the  Psalmist 
continues, ' '  the  years  of  ancient  times. "  "  Thou 
hast  made  known  thy  strength  among  the  peo- 
ple. Thou  hast  with  thine  own  arm  redeemed 
them. ' '  The  whole  psalm  is  tinged  with  reminis- 
cence. The  author  borrows  a  light  from  the 
altars  of  yesterday.  He  consoles  himself  by  re- 
calling the  goodness  of  the  Lord  in  the  days  gone 


J84         **Sonos  in  tbe  IRiabt" 

by.  Gratitude  has  usually  a  good  memory  and 
'can  tell  many  gracious  tales  of  ancient  mercies. 
Of  course  it  needs  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  in 
these  olden  times  song  covered  a  much  wider  field 
than  it  does  to-day.  In  the  absence  of  books  or 
magazines  or  newspapers  the  chief  relaxation  was 
to  tell  a  story  or  to  sing  a  song.  When  the  tired 
traveller  halted  for  the  night  he  would  take  his 
flute  or  his  lyre  and  refresh  himself  with  some 
ballad  of  love  or  home  or  romance  or  war.  And 
what  the  traveller  finds  in  his  flute  or  his  harp 
the  psalmist  finds  in  his  voice — an  instrument 
to  express  his  grateful  sense  of  the  goodness  and 
loving  kindness  of  Jehovah. 

William  Law  says  that  we  should  always  begin 
the  day  with  a  psalm  of  thanksgiving,  a  psalm, 
for  instance,  like  the  103rd  or  the  145th,  and  we 
should  express  it,  he  adds,  in  song.  Because  the 
singing,  he  claims,  awakens  all  our  dull  and 
sluggish  devotions.  It  kindles  a  holy  flame.  It 
creates  a  sense  of  jubilant  delight  in  God.  We 
should  let  our  voice  have  a  part  in  the  praise 
that  we  feel.  Because  he  goes  on,  the  soul  and 
body  are  so  interrelated  that  they  have  each  of 
them  a  strange  power  over  the  other.  Each 
sustains  the  other.  We  need  the  outward  action 
to  support  the  inward  temper.  The  difference 
between  reading  a  psalm  and  singing  it  is  much 
the  same  as  the  difference  between  reading  a  com- 
mon song  and  singing  it.    Suppose  I  were  to  ask 


**  Bells  at  iBvcninQ  pealtnG"     185 

you  to  sing  "Annie  Laurie"  for  me  and  you 
were  to  answer, ' '  I  cannot  sing  it,  but  I  will  read 
it  to  you ; ' '  well,  that  would  be  a  poor  and  feeble 
substitute.  A  song  of  praise  not  sung  is  a 
crippled  and  impoverished  thing.  Just  as  we 
laugh  when  we  are  pleased,  so  we  sing  when  we 
are  thankful.  It  is  the  natural  outlet.  "My 
heart  is  fixed, ' '  says  David.  ' '  My  heart  is  fixed, 
O  God,  I  will  sing  praises."  Let  a  man  be  un- 
grateful and  he  cannot  lift  a  tune.  He  is  too 
out  of  sorts,  too  out  of  communion.  It  is  a  cer- 
tain formula  to  miss  the  music. 

Would  you  know  who  the  greatest  saint  is  ?  It 
is  not  he  who  prays  the  most  or  reads  his  Bible 
the  longest  or  does  the  most  good  in  the  world. 
It  is  he  who  is  most  thankful;  it  is  he  who  is 
most  ready  to  praise  God  for  ever3rthing  that 
happens  to  him.  This  is  the  perfection  of  all 
goodness.  Because  the  very  moment  we  can 
thank  God  for  any  cross  that  comes  our  way, 
that  very  moment  we  turn  the  cross  into  a  crown. 
"Giving  thanks  always  for  all  things"  will  do 
more  to  put  victory  and  joy  and  gladness  into 
our  lives  than  anything  else.  A  good  woman 
kept  what  she  called  a  "Diary  of  Thanksgiving, " 
in  which  she  wrote  down  every  day  the  things 
for  which  she  was  especially  thankful.  How 
much  better  that  is  than  a  diary  of  complaints ! 
It  is  truly  surprising  how  good  a  poor  meal 
tastes  when  one  is  grateful. 


X86  '^Sonos  in  tbe  TRigbf* 

And  then  this  Bible  of  ours  is  so  gloriously 
rich  in  songs  of  gratitude.  The  first  song  of 
Scripture  is  the  song  of  Moses.  What  is  it  but 
a  burst  of  thankfulness — a  great  patriotic  flow 
of  praise  for  the  victory  over  Pharaoh.  Never 
had  the  shores  of  the  Red  Sea — or  for  that  matter 
of  any  sea — heard  such  a  mighty  strain.  Millions 
made  up  the  choir.  It  must  surely  have  sounded 
like  the  voice  of  many  waters. 

Do  you  know  why  there  are  so  many  lives  that 
are  songless  ?  It  is  because  they  are  ungrateful. 
This  is  true  even  of  our  burdens.  How  about 
your  burdens,  my  friend?  Do  you  hate  them? 
Do  you  make  war  against  them?  Would  you 
like  to  fling  them  away?  If  you  feel  that  way 
there  can  be  no  zest  nor  relish  in  the  journey. 
Along  that  road  is  bitterness  and  sighing  and 
complaint.  But  take  up  your  burden  and  say, 
"This,  too,  like  the  green  fields,  is  from  God," 
and  you  will  find  the  burden  light,  and  in  a  little 
while  you  will  find  yourself  unconsciously 
humming  some  familiar  air  as  you  saunter 
along. 

"Grief  comes,*'  as  one  has  beautifully 
said,  "as  angels  came  to  the  tent  of  Abra- 
ham. Laughter  is  hushed  before  them. 
The  mere  frolic  of  life  stands  still,  but  the 
soul  takes  the  grief  in  as  a  guest,  meets  it 
at  the  door,  kisses  its  hand,  washes  its 
travel-stained  feet,  spreads  its  table  with  the 
best  food,  gives  it  the  seat  by  the  fireside, 


"Bells  at  Bvening  pealtng*'     J87 

and  listens  reverently  to  what  it  has  to  say 
about  the  God  from  Whom  it  came. ' ' 

"Through  love  to  light!  O  wonderful  the  way 
That  leads  through  darkness  to  the  perfect  day! 
From  darkness  and  from  sorrow  of  the  night 
To  morning  that  comes  singing  o'er  the  sea. 
Through  love  to  light!   Through  light  O  God  to 

Thee 
Who  art  the  love  of  Love,  the  Eternal  Light  of 

Light." 

III.  And  then  once  more  it  was  a  Song  of 
Hope.  True,  the  hope  is  not  expressly  mentioned 
but  it  is  everywhere  inferred.  The  psalm  ends 
abruptly  but  it  ends  hopefully.  He  who  has 
brought  up  His  people  from  the  house  of  bondage 
is  not  going  to  forsake  them  now.  He  will  lead 
them  into  the  promised  rest.  He  that  hath  de- 
livered in  six  troubles  is  not  going  to  fail  in  the 
seventh.  * '  That  which  hath  been  is  that  which  is 
going  to  be. ' '  Surely  we  can  learn  enough  from 
the  past  to  make  us  willing  to  trust  for  the 
future.  That  is  the  gentle  inference  He  means 
us  to  draw.  Memory,  you  see,  supplies  the 
colours  with  which  hope  paints  the  picture.  And 
the  picture  is  all  the  more  striking  because  it  is 
left  for  the  imagination  to  portray. 

There  is  no  music  like  the  music  that  hope 
sings.  Hope  of  some  kind  is  necessary  to  kindle 
the  heart  into  melody.  There  is  no  discord  like 
the  discord  that  despair  makes.  To  refuse  to 
hope  when  God  promises  is  to  be  out  of  harmony 


J88  **  Songs  in  tbe  IRigbt" 

with  Him.  When  men  are  hopeless  their  harps 
hang  silent  on  the  willows.  And  Christianity  is 
a  manifesto  of  hope  from  start  to  j&nish.  It  was 
born  with  a  song  and  it  has  been  singing  ever 
since. 

A  good  deal  of  our  music,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, is  in  the  minor  strain.  It  is  sung  in  four 
flats  instead  of  five  sharps.  We  say  sullenly, 
''It's  God's  will  and  I  suppose  I  must  try  and 
give  in."  But  that  is  not  the  better  way.  That 
is  not  turning  the  statute  into  a  song.  The 
Psalmist  does  not  say,  "I  call  to  remembrance 
my  sigh  in  the  night."  It  is  not  my  sigh  but 
my  song.  The  statute  does  not  become  a  song 
until  it  sings  in  our  life  and  becomes  a  joy.  As 
William  Watson  puts  it  in  his  lovely  ode  to  the 
skylark : 

"  My  heart  is  dashed  with  griefs  and  fears, 
My  song  comes  fluttering  and  is  gone; 
O,  high  above  the  home  of  tears. 
Eternal  Joy,  Sing  on." 

And  then  the  most  beautiful  thing  of  all  about 
hope  is  that,  like  faith,  it  is  in  the  night  time 
that  it  sings  the  sweetest  too.  Night  is  a  symbol 
of  affliction.  Hope  brings  a  joyful  feeling  of 
deliverance  into  the  very  darkest  hours.  It  is 
not  so  very  diflScult  to  warble  our  little  ditty  in 
the  day.  It  is  natural  to  sing  when  the  sun  is 
shining  and  the  sky  is  clear.  Think  of  Habbak- 
kuk,  **  Although  the  fig  tree  shall  not  flourish, 


**asells  at  Bpening  pealiuG*'     J89 

neither  shall  fruit  be  in  the  vines,  the  labour  of 
the  olive  shall  fail  and  the  fields  shall  yield  no 
food;  the  flock  shall  be  cut  off  from  the  fold  and 
there  shall  be  no  herd  in  the  stalls."  Well,  that 
is  surely  a  very  dark  and  a  very  desperate  out- 
look. And  what  does  he  do  about  it?  Does  the 
old  prophet  give  up?  What  is  the  sequel? 
What  does  he  say?  Listen!  This  is  what  he 
says:  Although  all  these  things  are  so,  yet  *'I 
will  rejoice  in  Jehovah,  I  will  joy  in  the  God  of 
my  salvation."  That  is  sublime,  isn't  it?  That 
was  a  real  song  in  the  night. 

"  I  heard  a  voice  in  the  darkness  singing 
(That  was  a  valiant  soul  I  knew) 
And  the  joy  of  his  song  was  a  wild  bird  winging 
Swift  to  his  mate  through  a  sky  of  blue. 

"  Myself — I  sang  when  the  dawn  was  flinging 
Wide  his  guerdon  of  fire  and  dew; 
I  heard  a  voice  in  the  darkness  singing 
(That  was  a  valiant  soul  I  knew), 

"  And  his  song  was  of  love  and  all  its  brincring 

And  of  certain  day  when  the  night  was  through; 

I  raised  my  eyes  where  the  hope  was  springing. 
And  I  think  in  His  heaven  God  smiled  too. 

I  heard  a  voice  in  the  darkness  singing 
(That  was  a  valiant  soul  I  knew)." 

In  one  of  Ralph  Connor's  books  he  tells  the 
story  of  Gwen.  Gwen  was  a  wild  wilful  lassie 
and  one  who  had  always  been  accustomed  to  hav- 
ing her  own  way.    Then  one  day  she  met  with 


J90         "Sonas  in  tbe  IRigbt*' 

a  terrible  accident  which  crippled  her  for  life. 
She  became  very  rebellious  and  in  this  murmur- 
ing state  she  was  visited  by  the  Sky  Pilot.  He 
began  to  tell  her  the  parable  of  the  canyon.  He 
told  how  the  Master  of  the  prairies  sought  in 
vain  for  the  flowers  he  loved  and  then  how  one 
day  he  spoke  to  the  lightning  which  with  one 
swift  blow  cleft  the  rocks  and  made  a  jagged, 
gaping  wound.  Then  the  river  flowed  down, 
bringing  the  rich  mould,  and  the  birds  carried 
the  seed,  and  soon  all  kinds  of  lovely  flowers  be- 
gan to  grow  in  the  sheltered  canyon,  until  it  be- 
came the  Master's  favourite  place  for  walking, 
and  there  were  no  flowers  like  the  canyon  flowers. 
Gwen  thought  a  moment  and  then  said  sadly, 
"There  are  no  flowers  in  my  canyon  any  more, 
only  jagged  rocks."  "Some  day,  Gwen,"  he 
remarked,  "your  flowers  will  bloom.  The  Master 
is  going  to  bring  you  out  by  and  by  into  the 
garden  where  the  roses  grow."  Some  day  you 
will  stand  amid  the  splendours  of  rainbows  on 
the  shores  of  Glory. 

Let  us  then  learn  more  of  the  inspiring  min- 
istry of  song.  Let  us  try  and  cultivate  the  gentle 
art.  Let  us  pray  God  that  He  will  tune  our 
hearts  to  sing  His  grace.  "Are  you  ever  free 
from  pain?"  a  sainted  invalid  was  asked. 
"Never,"  she  replied,  "but  I  am  never  free  from 
peace  either."  Surely  that  was  a  song  in  the 
night.    Strange  and  wondrous  is  the  power  of 


"Bells  at  jsvcnirxQ  peaUnQ"     J9i 

music.  We  read  that  when  Napoleon  was  cross- 
ing the  Alps  his  soldiers  almost  gave  out.  They 
were  appalled  by  the  perils,  but  every  little  while 
they  would  stop  and  sing  the  "Marseillaise"  and 
it  buoyed  them  up.  And  you  will  recall  how 
Sir  Walter  Scott  tries  to  relieve  the  pain  of 
Roderick  Dhu,  when  that  old  warrior  was  dying, 
by  having  the  minstrel  sing  to  the  harp  some 
verses  of  a  famous  battle  hymn,  so  that  though 
dying  in  prison, 

"  His  free  spirit  might  burst  away 
As  if  it  soared  from  battle  fray." 

Look  at  Harry  Lauder.  He  goes  over  to  Flan- 
ders to  find  the  grave  of  his  boy  and  standing  by 
it  he  said,  **I  wish  I  could  see  my  John  for  just 
a  wee  minit  to  tell  him  how  proud  I  am  of  him. ' ' 
.Then  back  he  goes  to  the  camps  to  sing  to  the 
soldiers. 

Seventy  years  ago  a  man  by  the  name  of  Han- 
nington,  better  known  to  us  to-day  as  Bishop 
Hannington,  went  out  to  Africa  to  preach  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  He  laboured  for  almost 
forty  years  in  the  Dark  Continent  and  then  was 
cruelly  murdered  by  the  natives.  He  kept  a 
diary  which  Stanley  brought  back  with  him  and 
which  has  proven  to  be  a  very  remarkable  docu- 
ment. The  handwriting  is  small  and  closely 
written,  and  this  is  the  entry  on  the  last  page, 
the  last  entry  that  was  made : 


J92         **  Songs  in  tbe  mibgt" 

"I  can  hear  no  news,  but  was  held  up  by 
Psalm  30,  which  came  with  great  power.  A 
hyena  howled  near  me  last  night,  smelling 
a  sick  man,  but  I  hope  he  is  not  to  have  me 
yeV 

The  date  of  that  entry  was  October  29, 1885,  and 
it  shows  how  a  man  lonely  and  sick  and  burning 
up  with  fever  and  face  to  face  with  the  very 
worst  can  by  God's  help  sing  a  song  in  the 
night, — a  song  of  Faith,  a  song  of  Gratitude,  a 
song  of  Hope. 

"  Don't  let  the  song  go  out  of  your  life 
Though  it  chance  sometimes  to  flow 
In  a  minor  strain;  it  will  blend  again 
With  the  major  tone  you  know. 

"  What  though  shadows  rise  to  obscure  life's  skies, 
And  hide  for  a  time  the  sun. 
The  sooner  they'll  lift  and  reveal  the  rift, 
If  you  let  the  melody  run. 

"Don't  let  the  song  go  out  of  your  life; 

Though  the  voice  may  have  lost  its  trill, 
Though  the  tremulous  note  may  die  in  your  throat, 
Let  it  sing  in  your  spirit  still. 

"Don't  let  the  song  go  out  of  your  life; 
Let  it  ring  in  the  soul  while  here; 
And  when  you  go  hence,  'twill  follow  you  thence, 
And  live  on  in  another  sphere." 


JHnted  in  the  United  States  of  America 


Date  Due 

N  21  '38 

k  6     '4; 

~,     '■'■          7'  " 

'^^  ^:  .^  %> 

■yj 

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